Djibouti Boat Disaster: 109 Dead, 116+ Missing
The International Organization for Migration says 305 people were aboard a boat bound from Djibouti for Yemen. Rescuers recovered 109 bodies, 15 of them children, and more than 80 Ethiopians survived.
A boat carrying more than 300 migrants from Djibouti toward Yemen capsized overnight between Thursday, October 8, and Friday, October 9, 2026, off the village of Guhere, north of the town of Obock on Djibouti’s eastern coast. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday, October 11, in a statement from Geneva and Obock that 109 bodies have been recovered and more than 116 people are listed as missing. The organization says it is the deadliest shipwreck ever recorded off the coast of Djibouti.
How many people were on the boat, and who survived?
According to survivors’ accounts relayed by the IOM, 305 people were aboard. AFP, in a report carried by Arab News, puts the number at around 350, while Al Jazeera writes that there were more than 300. The sources, in other words, disagree on how many people were on the boat.
The recovered bodies include 52 men, 42 women and 15 children, nine girls and six boys. More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals. The IOM is assisting 64 survivors at its migrant reception center in Obock, where it provides medical and psychosocial support, temporary shelter, food and help with contacting their families. Djibouti’s authorities are continuing search and rescue operations, providing medical care to survivors and arranging burials for the dead. The cause of the capsizing has not been disclosed.
What did the IOM’s Djibouti chief of mission say?
Alexandre Koassack, the IOM’s chief of mission in Djibouti, said in the statement:
“This is a devastating loss of life. Our thoughts are with the survivors and with the families who have lost loved ones or are still without news of their relatives.”
He added that the organization’s teams are on the ground with local authorities: “Our teams are on the ground, together with local authorities, to provide emergency assistance.” In his words, the tragedy is also a “stark reminder of the dangers migrants face on this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities.”
Why do people keep crossing the Bab el Mandeb?
The Bab el Mandeb strait is about 20 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, and every year tens of thousands of people from the Horn of Africa cross it hoping for work and safety in the Gulf states. The IOM says more than 20,000 arrivals from Ethiopia into Djibouti have been recorded since September 10. Al Jazeera, citing the same agency, writes that last year more than half a million people tried to take this route into Yemen.
The death toll keeps climbing. In 2025, more than 900 migrants died or went missing on this route, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, while the number of people setting out rose by 18 percent. In March 2026, a shipwreck on the same route killed nine people and left 45 missing.
Migrants who reach Yemen face violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, exploitation and human trafficking. Al Jazeera notes that fighting between government forces and the Houthis flared up again there last month, driving several thousand people to flee Yemen for Djibouti. In its statement, the IOM calls on donors to step up support for the response in Djibouti, including search and rescue, and asks for wider avenues for safe migration.
