ADDIS ABABA: At least eight people died and 22 were missing after smugglers forced migrants to disembark from a boat in the Red Sea, the UN’s migration agency said on Wednesday.

The boat had around 150 passengers when it was stopped by the smugglers who were carrying them last Thursday, forcing them to disembark midway through their journey.

“The passengers were left to swim for their lives in open water,” the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said in a statement. It was not clear why the smugglers forced the group to disembark.

Each year, thousands of African migrants brave the “Eastern Route” across the Red Sea from Djibouti to Yemen in the hope of eventually reaching oil-rich Gulf countries.

Last year, the IOM recorded at least 558 deaths on the route, with 462 resulting from shipwrecks. The IOM said at least five bodies from last week’s incident had been found washed up on the Djibouti coast.

“These young people were forced into impossible choices by smugglers who show no regard for human life,” Frantz Celestin, IOM regional director for East, Horn and Southern Africa, said. “Every life lost at sea is a tragedy that should never happen,” Celestin added.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2025