A vessel carrying 305 people sank in waters between Djibouti and Yemen, leaving 139 people confirmed dead and roughly 84 others unaccounted for, according to a Sunday report from the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations body. Among those who lost their lives, at least 15 were minors.

Testimonies gathered from survivors placed the vessel's sinking off Guhere, a location north of the Djiboutian port town of Obock, with the incident unfolding across the night of 8 to 9 October, the agency reported. Around 82 of those on board managed to leave unharmed.

Images distributed by the UN agency showed footwear — battered sandals and trainers — lying along the waterline. Search and rescue efforts in Djibouti were still under way, according to the IOM.

Local authorities were managing survivor care and burial arrangements. Alexandre Coissac, heading the IOM's Djibouti mission, noted that response teams had been deployed alongside those officials to deliver emergency support, adding that the deaths underscored the well-documented hazards facing migrants who travel this corridor in pursuit of livelihoods.

People from the group were travelling through Yemen with the aim of pressing onward to more prosperous countries in the Gulf region. With fighting between Yemeni government forces — backed by Saudi Arabia — and Houthi fighters receiving Iranian support showing no sign of abating despite a UN-brokered ceasefire arrangement reached in 2022, residents have been departing the country, while the IOM has documented that foreign nationals continue to attempt the overland route toward Gulf states throughout the hostilities.

Documentation gathered by the IOM over multiple years points to sustained movement along the Djibouti corridor — a path sometimes labelled the Eastern Route — with an agency representative noting that conditions in Ethiopia and Yemen have shaped both the numbers and the direction of people on the move, even as activity along that corridor has persisted.

Armed clashes in Ethiopia have flared up over the past several weeks, representing the most pronounced escalation of hostilities the country has seen since the Tigray conflict of 2020 to 2022. Armed clashes broke out across Tigray on 23 September.

According to the IOM's situation report covering the period through 30 September, Ethiopian nationals who spoke with researchers cited hardship at home — among them the toll of prolonged drought — as the reason they had left, while a portion of those interviewed additionally described having fled armed conflict and forced conscription into military ranks. A number of local residents conveyed to one broadcaster that armed groups affiliated with Tigray's forces had compelled young men into military service — an account those groups have disputed.

Analysts have noted that the fighting raises the prospect of a broader armed confrontation. Relations between the two neighbouring Horn of Africa states broke down after Ethiopia attributed the rupture to what it characterised as Eritrean support for the armed alliance seeking to remove its government — an allegation Asmara has consistently denied.

People travelling the Eastern Route face a range of documented risks, from maritime accidents and trafficking to detention upon arrival on land. Data gathered by the IOM's Missing Migrants Project put the toll at over 900 deaths and disappearances along that route during 2025, a year in which the volume of people attempting the crossing climbed by 18 per cent.

The IOM has characterised the humanitarian situation stemming from Yemen's armed conflict as a matter of deep concern. Figures published the previous week put the number of displaced people at 200,000 — nearly three times the 76,000 counted in mid-September. By last week, the number of people who had made the sea crossing from Yemen to Djibouti stood at upwards of 3,700.