by & nbspgavin Blackburn & nbspwith & nbspAP
It’s published
The United Nations Immigration Agency said Wednesday that eight migrants have died and 22 have gone missing after 22 people were kicked out of a boat near the Djibouti coast.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement that the migrants were part of a group of 150 people and were forced by smugglers to unload their boats and swim to the coast on June 5.
The migrants were found in the desert by the IOM patrol team and taken to an immigration response centre.
Djibouti’s IOM and authorities continue their search and rescue operations to find missing immigrants.
“All life lost in the ocean is a tragedy that never happens,” said Celestine Franz, IOM regional director for East, Horn and South Africa.
Franz said immigrants were “forced to make impossible choices by smugglers who did not respect human life.”
Thousands of migrants from Africa, the Middle East and South Asian countries seeking better lives in Europe attempt to migrate irregularly every year.
Smugglers of people pack a ship full of hopeless people willing to risk their lives to reach continental Europe.
Most vessels acquire immigration across the Red Sea to the Gulf countries before further progressing into European countries.
Yemen is the main route that the East African immigrants and the Horn of Africa are trying to reach the Gulf countries for work, with hundreds of thousands trying each year.
However, Frontex, the EU’s external border protection agency, reported a 31% decline in illegal immigration crossings in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period a year ago.
The intersection fell to nearly 33,600, and reduced on all routes leading to Europe.
A significant drop of about 30% was observed on the West African route linking Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia and Western Sahara to the Canary Islands of Spain.
Similarly, 29% of falls were reported at intersections along the Eastern Mediterranean route, primarily Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria from Afghanistan, Sudan and Egypt to Bulgaria.
The third sharpest autumn, -26% was on the Central Mediterranean route, from western and Central Africa to Niger and Libya, across the Central Mediterranean, heading to Europe, particularly Italy.
