MORE THAN 90 people have died after a boat sank off Yemen’s coast, Yemeni officials and a source at the International Organisation for Migration have confirmed.

The boat carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants sank on Sunday as it headed towards the Abyan governorate in southern Yemen.

A Yemeni source at the UN agency the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said that two bodies, which were initially buried by local fishermen after they washed up on the beach and began rotting, had been recovered.

This has taken the toll of confirmed deaths from the shipwreck to 96.

Earlier, a Yemeni security source and a local official in Abyan said 94 bodies had been recovered and most of them had been buried, with the local official saying bodies of the deceased were still washing up on the shore.

Abyan’s province top security official, Brigadier General Ali Nasser Buzaid, said there were both men and women among the deceased.

Local authorities and the IOM said the boat was carrying around 200 people.

Yesterday, two Yemeni security officials told AFP that 32 people were rescued and dozens were still missing.

Despite the civil war ongoing in Yemen since 2014, the country has remained a highly frequented transit point for undocumented migration, in particular from Ethiopia which itself has been roiled by conflict.

© AFP 2025

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