Every year thousands of migrants fleeing poverty, conflict zones or harsh climate conditions and in search of jobs and decent life face death and inhumane conditions in their journey
At least 49 migrants, including 31 women and six children, drowned and died after a boat carrying them capsized off the Yemen coast on Monday, International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Tuesday, June 11. The IOM stated that some 140 are still missing.
The boat was traveling from Somalia to Yemen and capsized near Alghareef Point in Yemen's Subwah province. It was carrying 260 people mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, according to the IOM. There were 90 women among them.
Search and rescue operations were ongoing on Tuesday. The IOM claimed that at least 70 people, including six children, were rescued. It also claimed that lack of enough operational boats in Yemen's coastal areas has delayed and hampered the rescue operations. However, local communities and fishermen played a crucial role in saving a large number of lives.
The people traveling on the boat were heading towards Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in search of jobs, survivors told the IOM.
There has been an uptick of migration from the countries in the horn of Africa to the Gulf in recent years largely due to persistent conflict and instability in the region. Both Somalia and Ethiopia have suffered from prolonged conflict and war, worsened by imperialist meddling, which has had devastating impacts on the local economy and security.
The region has also been affected by a prolonged drought and other climate catastrophes forcing people to look for alternative sources of livelihood elsewhere.
Monday's was the third such accident in recent weeks in the region of the Red and Arabian Sea. In April, in two different shipwrecks at least 62 migrants were killed off the Djibouti coast.
Yemen, whose economy and society has been reeling for the past decade under the Saudi-led war and blockade, has emerged as a transit route for migration to the Gulf with the number of migrants increasing every year without any adequate facility for them or even a mechanism to protect their rights or to provide for their safe return home if stranded. Attacks on Yemen increased in January, when the UK and US began to launch airstrikes in response to Ansar Allah's blockade of Israeli and Israel-bound ships in the Red Sea.
According to IOM, nearly 300,000 migrants, mostly from Africa are stranded in war-torn Yemen as there are not enough resources or institutional support to facilitate their safe return.
Yemen emerging as a transitory hub for migrants
According to IOM, the Arab and Red Sea region, known as the Eastern Route, has emerged as one of the busiest routes of migration in the world along with the Mediterranean in recent times. IOM claims its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) observed that Yemen received a total of over 97,000 migrants in 2023, over 24,000 more than previous year.
Given lack of adequate safety mechanisms in the region, exacerbated by the war and blockade, hostile climate conditions and overcrowding in the boats often result in accidents in which hundreds have died or gone missing. IOM's Missing Migrant Project has recorded over 1,860 dead or missing migrants since 2014 in the region.
According to the IOM over 65,000 migrants have died or gone missing in such accidents across the world since 2014. So far in 2024 alone nearly 2,000 migrants have either died or gone missing in various accidents across the world.
The Mediterranean route is considered by the IOM to be the deadliest of all routes with nearly 30,000 migrants dead or missing in the sea since 2014. Most of these deaths are caused due to European countries' reluctance to allow the migrants boats to reach their coasts. As a result migrants in overcrowded boats are often stranded in sea for days dying of lack of food or medicines or by drowning. It is worth noting that for other major migrant crossings like the Red Sea and the Sahara, there is often not enough information available and infrastructure to have an accurate tally of the missing and dead.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Read more: The unremarkable death of migrants in the Sahara Desert
Migrants crossing through Yemen face an additional threat at the border with Saudi Arabia, at the hands of Saudi border guards. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report found that Saudi border guards killed and shot at hundreds of African migrants and asylum seekers between March 2022 and June 2023, while they were trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia. On Tuesday, at least three such migrants were killed at Saudi-Yemen border at Saadah, Al-Masirah reported.
