The UN raises the number of missing migrants to more than a hundred due to two shipwrecks with 45 dead off Djibouti

Oct. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The double shipwreck that has caused the death of at least 45 migrants off the coast of Djibouti has also left more than a hundred missing, according to a provisional balance sheet from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has explained that both boats They had left from Yemen.

In the first of them there were about a hundred people, while in the second there were 210, according to the testimony of the survivors. The traffickers forced them to jump into the water in the open sea and swim to the coast, which ended up causing a tragedy of still uncertain proportions. The IOM is collaborating with the Djibouti Coast Guard in the search efforts and, although 55 people have already been rescued, the agency estimates that another 111 are missing.

Until this incident, the organization had recorded 124 deaths this year off the coast of Djibouti, a country of departure and return of boats. Every year, hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa, particularly from Ethiopia and Somalia, try to make the route to Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The IOM director for the region, Frantz Celestin, has warned that “the latest double tragedy serves as a dire reminder of the urgent need to protect migrants” in this area.