Nine Dead, 45 Missing After Migrant Boat Sinks off Djibouti Coast

A shipwreck north of Obock on the night of March 24 left nine migrants dead and 45 still missing from a vessel carrying 320 passengers. The Djiboutian coastguard launched an emergency overnight operation after the vessel, a traditional galba-type boat packed with those 320 people, went down near Guehere in the north of the country.

The bodies of three women and six men have been recovered. IOM teams are providing food, shelter, health and psychosocial support to more than 120 survivors, all Ethiopian nationals, at IOM's Migrant Response Centre in the nearby town of Obock. Government-led search and rescue operations remain ongoing in the hope of finding more survivors, while local authorities are putting in place dignified burial arrangements for the deceased and supporting medical treatment for those rescued.

"Every life lost at sea is one too many," said Tanja Pacifico, IOM Chief of Mission in Djibouti. "This tragic shipwreck may sadly mark the first of many incidents this year and comes at a time when the hot season is just starting in Djibouti, bringing rougher seas and strong winds that place migrants at even greater risk."

The migrants were attempting to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Djibouti to Yemen when the vessel sank. The Eastern Route they were traveling is, according to IOM, "one of the busiest and riskiest migration routes in the world traveled by hundreds of thousands of migrants, most of whom travel irregularly, often relying on smugglers to facilitate movement."

The scale of that movement has grown sharply. IOM data shows that more than 506,000 people moved along the Eastern Route in 2025, an 18 percent increase on the previous year, driven in part by smugglers adopting more remote coastal paths through Djibouti to evade police checkpoints. Transit movements through Obock alone rose by 58 percent last year. Approximately 922 people died or went missing on the Eastern Route in 2025, nearly double the 558 recorded the year before, making it the deadliest year since IOM began tracking the route in 2014.

Each year, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa travel to Djibouti in an attempt to cross the Gulf of Aden and reach Gulf countries in search of safety, stability, and job opportunities. Many are driven by poverty, insecurity, and the growing impacts of climate change.

IOM disclosed that 922 deaths and disappearances were recorded along the Eastern Route in 2025, almost double the 558 reported in 2024, making 2025 the deadliest year on record since its Missing Migrants Project was launched in 2014. The UN's migration agency recorded at least 7,667 migration deaths worldwide last year, approximately 21 each day. "These deaths are not inevitable," IOM Director General Amy Pope said in February.

Earlier this year, IOM launched the 2026 Regional Migrant Response Plan for the Horn of Africa, Yemen and Southern Africa, appealing for $91 million to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of migrants along the Eastern Route. In response to growing needs and funding shortfalls, IOM is calling for increased international support to strengthen search and rescue operations and expand safe migration pathways, while urging donors and partners to scale up financial support to Djibouti to sustain life-saving assistance and prevent further loss of life.