UN launches a rescue operation after 8 migrants die off Djiboutian coast

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.N migration agency said Wednesday that eight migrants died and 22 others were missing after they were forced off a boat near the Djiboutian coast.

The International Organization for Migration, or IOM, in a statement said the migrants were part of a group of 150 others who were forced by smugglers to disembark a boat and swim to shore on June 5.

The migrants were found in the desert by IOM patrol teams and taken to a migrant response center.

The IOM and authorities in Djibouti are continuing with a search and rescue operation to find the missing migrants.

“Every life lost at sea is a tragedy that should never happen,” Celestine Frantz, said IOM Regional Director for the East, Horn and Southern Africa.

Frantz said that the migrants were “forced into impossible choices by smugglers who show no regard for human life.”

Thousands of migrants from African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries seeking a better life in Europe attempt irregular migration every year. Smugglers pack vessels full of desperate people willing to risk their lives to reach continental Europe.

Most of the vessels get migrants across the Red Sea to Gulf countries before they proceed further to European nations.

Yemen is a major route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach Gulf countries for work, with hundreds of thousands attempting the route each year.