Two migrant boats sank in heavy seas off the coast of Djibouti, death toll risen to 43

The death toll after two migrant boats sank in heavy seas off the coast of Djibouti has risen to 43, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday, with scores still feared missing. Search and rescue teams met with grim scenes of bodies strewn across the beach at Obock, a port town down the coast from Godaria where the vessels had set sail on the Horn of Africa nation’s northeast coast on Tuesday.

In 2017, some 2,900 people, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, fled the dire conditions they had found in Yemen back to Djibouti. The sea crossing itself has repeatedly proven perilous.