The United Nations migration agency reported on Friday that four boats carrying migrants from Africa collapsed overnight in waters off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least two dead and 186 missing.
Tamim Eleian, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said two ships capsized late Thursday off Yemen. He told reporters that while two crew members were saved, five Yemeni crew members and 181 migrants are still unaccounted for. Around the same time, he alleged, two more boats went overboard off the small African country of Djibouti. All of the passengers were saved, and two migrant bodies were found.
Abdusattor Esoev, chief of the IOM mission in Yemen, told reporters that the two boats capsized near the beach in Djibouti after they began sailing away due to strong winds. Thirty-one Ethiopian migrants and three Yemeni crew members were on board the third boat when it capsized off the Dhubab area in the Taiz province in southwest Yemen.
The fourth boat, carrying 150 Ethiopian migrants and four Yemeni crew members, capsized close to the exact location while travelling to the Ahwar region in the Abyan governorate. Hundreds of thousands of migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa attempt to reach Gulf countries for employment every year, with Yemen serving as a key entry point.
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