139 Dead Including 15 Children After Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Djibouti
October 12, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
At least 139 migrants, including 15 children, died when a boat carrying 305 people capsized off Djibouti on the night of 8-9 October, the IOM confirmed. Eighty-four people remain missing from a vessel that was heading across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to war-torn Yemen.
One hundred and thirty-nine people, including 15 children, died when a single boat carrying 305 migrants capsized near the port town of Obock, Djibouti, on the night of 8-9 October, the International Organization for Migration confirmed. Eighty-four people remain missing. Eighty-two survivors, all Ethiopian nationals, were pulled from the water.
The IOM initially reported 109 dead before revising the toll upward after rescuers recovered 30 more bodies. Of the first 109 recovered, the agency recorded 52 men, 42 women and 15 children. The vessel was heading from Djibouti across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Yemen when it went down near Guhere, north of Obock.
Alexandre Coissac, the IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti, called the disaster "a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor." The IOM said it was providing healthcare, food and psychosocial support to 64 survivors at its response centre in Obock. Djiboutian authorities continued search-and-rescue operations and arranged burials for the dead.
Those words follow a year in which, according to IOM statistics, more than 900 migrants died or went missing on this same eastern route. The number of people attempting the crossing rose 18% over that period. The IOM described the capsize as one of the deadliest single boat disasters recorded on the corridor.
March 2026 brought a near-identical incident. Nine people died and 45 went missing when another vessel capsized on the same route.
Since 10 September alone, the IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix recorded more than 20,000 movements from Ethiopia into Djibouti. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Ethiopians and Somalis, use the eastern route each year to reach Gulf countries, principally Saudi Arabia. Some flee conflict and disaster; others move for work. Smugglers have crammed migrants onto boats crossing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Yemen, the destination, has been at war for more than a decade. The UN refugee agency reported last month that the conflict has displaced more than 130,000 people inside the country. Fighting on the Red Sea coast between Houthi forces and Saudi-backed government troops has also driven more than 3,700 people in the other direction, from Yemen into Djibouti, the IOM said.
The agency says it works in "close collaboration" with local authorities to "prevent deaths at sea and on land." The numbers say something different.
Published October 12, 2026 · Frisian News