At least 68 migrants are dead after a boat carrying about 157 people sank in bad weather off the coast of Yemen. Twelve people were rescued. Dozens are still missing.
The vessel went down off the southern province of Abyan on Sunday, Yemen’s chief for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Abdusattor Esoev, told the BBC. Most of the victims are believed to be Ethiopian nationals, the IOM said.
Abyan security officials said a large search-and-rescue mission had been launched. Many bodies have been found across a wide area of shoreline.
Esoev said the boat was travelling a dangerous route through a vast coastal area that smugglers often use. He argued for stronger legal safeguards so migrants are not exploited by those smugglers.
“What we are advocating for all member states… is to enhance their regular pathways so people can take legal ways in order to migrate, instead of being trapped or deceived by smugglers and taking those dangerous journeys,” he said.
A busy and deadly route
Yemen is a major pathway for migrants from the Horn of Africa heading to Gulf states in search of work. For many, the final destination is Saudi Arabia. The IOM has called the journey from the Horn, which is made up of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea, “one of the busiest and most perilous mixed migration routes.”
The IOM estimates that hundreds have died or gone missing in shipwrecks in recent months. In March, two boats carrying more than 180 migrants sank off Yemen’s Dhubab district in rough seas. Only two crew members were rescued.
An IOM report says migrants arriving at Migrant Response Points in Yemen describe smugglers growing more reckless, knowingly sending boats into dangerous conditions to avoid patrols.
People keep coming. More than 60,000 arrived in Yemen in 2024 alone. Over the past decade, the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded more than 3,400 deaths and disappearances along the route, and 1,400 of those deaths were from drowning.
The crossing ends in a country at war. Yemen’s civil war has lasted more than a decade, and the Iran-backed Houthi group has controlled much of the north-west since 2014, when it ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sanaa.
