139 people dead, including 15 children, after migrant boat capsizes off Africa: “Overwhelmed with all the bodies”

At least 139 people, including children, have died after a boat carrying more than 300 migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti in east Africa, the International Organization for Migration said Sunday.

“This is a devastating loss of life. Our thoughts are with the survivors and the families who have lost loved ones or remain without news of their relatives,” Alexandre Coissac, IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, said in a statement.

That number only includes those buried by authorities in Djibouti. Others have been buried by the migrants themselves, but they won’t be added to the official count until authorities can verify the bodies, Coissac told the AP via the phone.

“What is terrible is that they were buried with no names, in a common grave, like in a war situation,” Coissac said. “They all have a mother, a father, and we may never learn what happened.”

Coissac said the migrants boarded the ship in the evening of Oct. 8 and that it sank very soon after, close to the shore, “mainly because it was overcrowded.”

“The local authorities did their best,” Coissac said, “but they were overwhelmed with all the bodies that kept coming at once towards the shore.”

The IOM said among the bodies recovered were nine girls and six boys. More than 80 people survived the shipwreck, all Ethiopian nationals. IOM released video of the aftermath of the wreck, showing the capsized vessel and victims’ clothes on the shore.

He said authorities were bringing the surviving migrants to the IOM rescue center in Obock where they receive medical assistance after swallowing sea water, and psychological support.

“They’re all in a state of shock,” said Coissac, who visited the area of the shipwreck Saturday. “I tried to talk to some of them but it’s very difficult.”

Some of the migrants in the IOM center are already aware that their family members died during the shipwreck. Others were given access to phones to call loved ones back home to notify them they are alive.

At least 84 people remained missing in one of the deadliest shipwrecks yet on the popular but perilous crossing from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, where many migrants seek work in rich Gulf nations.

The boat was traveling from Djibouti to Yemen when it capsized on Thursday night or Friday morning, according to the IOM. More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals, it said.

The Geneva-based U.N. migration agency said the vessel had 305 people on board and warned that the death toll could still rise.

Personal items likely belonging to the migrants, including shoes, were seen on a beach in a video shared by IOM. Rescue work continued as fears grew for the missing.

Tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa travel every year through Djibouti and across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Gulf countries in search of safety and economic opportunities, the IOM said in its statement.

That movement has continued despite newly escalating fighting in Yemen, on the other side of the strait.

“This is a devastating loss of life,” said Coissac. “This tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities.”

In recent weeks, at least 2,000 Yemenis have received aid in Djibouti as the fighting has escalated in Yemen between the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

That’s the opposite direction from the movement of the migrants who died in the shipwreck and the typical migration patterns of recent years: The tens of thousands who cross from eastern Africa toward Yemen each year have typically been looking for work in places like Saudi Arabia.

More than 900 migrants died or went missing along the route last year, according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, while the number undertaking the journey increased by 18%.

Earlier this year, IOM said 53 people were dead or missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast. Only two survivors were rescued.

“No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way,” IOM Director-General Amy Pope said. “We cannot keep treating these deaths as normal. Safe and legal pathways save lives. I am asking governments and donors to act before the next boat goes down.”

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