The regional head of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) said on
Monday that 34 migrants had died after
their boat capsized off Djibouti.
"The migrants were being transported by
smugglers," Mohammed Abdiker, IOM's
director for the East and Horn of Africa,
wrote on Twitter, lamenting the "second
such tragedy in just over a month" after
20 people died in the same Bab el-
Mandeb Strait on March 4.
"Many children" are among the bodies
found, a source within the IOM told AFP,
indicating that the capsizing "happened
around 04:00 in the morning, north of
Obock", a city on the Djiboutian coast.
"It is a boat that left Yemen with about 60
migrants on board, according to
survivors," added this source.
"The boat would have been chased by the
coast guard and there were also,
apparently, big waves, the weather was
bad," she explained, stressing that the
survivors were "taken care of by IOM and
the authorities" Djibouti.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which
separates Djibouti from Yemen, is a place
of heavy traffic of migrants and refugees,
where both Yemenis fleeing the war and
Africans going to try their luck in the
Arabian Peninsula cross.
In March, some 20 migrants from Djibouti
drowned after smugglers threw dozens of
people on an overcrowded boat of 200
people into the sea.
Two similar incidents were reported in
October, resulting in the deaths of at
least 50 migrants.
"Apprehending and prosecuting human
traffickers and smugglers who exploit the
vulnerabilities of migrants must become
a priority," Abdiker said in his tweet,
lamenting "too many lives lost
unnecessarily."