Tag: Djibouti

Children among 16 dead after asylum-seeker boat capsizes off Djibouti: UN | Migration News

At least 28 others are missing after a boat carrying 77 asylum seekers sinks, according to the UN’s migration agency.

At least 16 people are dead and 28 others are missing after a boat carrying asylum seekers capsized off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, according to the UN’s migration agency.

The accident occurred on Monday night, about two weeks after another boat carrying mainly Ethiopian asylum seekers sank off the Djibouti coast, killing several dozen people, on the perilous so-called “eastern migration route” from Africa to the Middle East.

“Tragedy as boat capsizes off Djibouti coast with 77 migrants on board including children,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday in a post on X.

“At least 28 missing. 16 dead,” it said, adding that the local IOM branch was “supporting local authorities with search and rescue effort”.

Yvonne Ndege, a spokeswoman for the agency, told the AFP news agency that the 16 deaths included children and an infant, without offering further details.

Ethiopia’s ambassador to Djibouti, Berhanu Tsegaye, said on X that the boat was carrying Ethiopians from Yemen and that the accident occurred off Godoria in northeastern Djibouti.

He said 33 people, including one woman, survived.

Another boat carrying more than 60 people sank off the coast of Godoria on April 8, according to the IOM and the Ethiopian embassy in Djibouti.

The IOM said at the time that the bodies of 38 people, including children, were recovered, while another six people were missing.

The Ethiopian embassy had said the boat was carrying Ethiopians from Djibouti to war-torn Yemen.

‘Eastern Route’

Each year, many tens of thousands of African asylum seekers brave the “eastern route” across the Red Sea and through Yemen to try to reach Saudi Arabia, escaping conflict or natural disaster, or seeking better economic opportunities.

“On their journeys, many face life-threatening dangers including starvation, health risks and exploitation – at the hands of human traffickers and other criminals,” the IOM said in a statement in February.

Ndege said the IOM’s data from 2023 showed that “the number of people trying to cross is on the rise”.

According to the IOM, Ethiopians make up 79 percent of about 100,000 people who arrived in Yemen last year from Djibouti or Somalia, the remainder being Somalis.

Africa’s second-most populous country, Ethiopia is blighted by various conflicts and several regions have suffered from severe drought in recent years.

More than 15 percent of its 120 million inhabitants depend on food aid.

In February, the IOM said that according to its Missing Migrants Project at least 698 people, including women and children, had died crossing the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti to Yemen last year.



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UN says 38 dead, including children, as migrant boat sinks off Djibouti | Migration News

Many hundreds of people have died in the Gulf of Aden while trying to reach Saudi Arabia through Yemen.

At least 38 migrants and refugees, including children, have died after their boat sank off the coast of Djibouti, the United Nations migration agency has said, after their bodies were recovered.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a post on X on Tuesday that at least six others are missing and presumed dead, and that 22 survivors are being assisted by its representatives in the East African country, along with local officials.

This adds to nearly 1,000 people who have been recorded to have died or gone missing after embarking on the “Eastern Route” since 2014, the IOM said.

The treacherous journey on the infamous route takes migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa through Yemen to other Arab countries in the region.

The route continues to see an increase in migrant journeys despite the dangers, with people seeking better livelihoods and with larger numbers of women and children travelling alone, according to the IOM.

In February, the agency reported that nearly 400,000 migrant movements were recorded across the Eastern Route in 2023.

Another route from the Horn of Africa to the south of the continent, particularly to South Africa, which is also identified by the UN as a highly dangerous and complex route, saw 80,000 movements in the same period.

At least 698 people, including women and children, died in 2023 while trying to cross the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti to Yemen in hopes of reaching Saudi Arabia, the IOM said in a report, adding that it provides assistance to more than 1.4 million migrants and host communities in the Horn of Africa, Yemen and Southern Africa.

Migrants and refugees leave home in search of better jobs, to escape conflict and insecurity, and the adverse effects of climate change. In addition to facing the threat of drowning in shipwrecks, they can also be exposed to starvation, health risks, and exploitation by traffickers.



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Could Red Sea attacks push up prices and fuel inflation? | Business and Economy

Houthi rebels have attacked vessels transporting goods through Bab al-Mandeb strait that they say are linked to Israel.

Inflation was expected to ease in 2024 after more than 18 months of interest rate hikes by central banks. The most aggressive monetary tightening in decades.

But attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea are threatening to push up the cost of living again.

Geopolitical tensions have disrupted global trade, sending shipping and insurance costs soaring.

A widening war in the oil-producing Middle East region could further worsen people’s finances.

Africa’s mounting debt is crippling the continent’s development.

Plus, we look at how sleep has turned into a multibillion-dollar business.

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