IOM Regional Director for East and Horn of Africa Mohammed Abdiker also wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that “gloomy images” of “children’s bodies ashore” have now appeared. A tweet from Abdiker previously said that at least 16 children (8 boys and 8 girls) were among the dead.
An IOM press release said on Tuesday that the 60 “migrants were being transported by smugglers” from Yemen to Djibouti and that this was the second tragedy of its kind “in just over a month”.
Last month’s tragedy saw smugglers throwing 80 people overboard due to overcrowding, drowning at least 20 people, according to the press release.
“Every year, tens of thousands of young African migrants in the region make the dangerous journey from countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia through Djibouti and Yemen in search of work in the Gulf,” according to the press release.
The cause of the overthrow remains unclear, although many voyages are currently “made aboard ships unsuitable by migrants desperate to return home almost daily.”
Despite the dangers, “the number of migrants arriving in Djibouti continues to rise,” IOM said.
“In March, more than 2,343 migrants arrived from Yemen, up from 1,900 in February. Most were trying to make their way to Ethiopia and Somalia.”
The ongoing conflict has left “tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa” trapped in Yemen with “many living in dangerous conditions, usually without access to food, shelter, health care and security,” IOM said.
Migrants eager to return home are forced to pay smugglers “large sums of money to facilitate” risky trips home, she added.
In Yemen alone, more than 6,000 people have registered for voluntary humanitarian return assistance (VHR) to get home, and IOM launched a $ 99 million call in March to help meet the needs of migrants in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.