At least 139 people, including children, have died after a boat carrying more than 300 migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti, a small East African country on the Red Sea, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday.

At least 84 others remain missing, and the IOM warned the death toll could still rise. It is one of the deadliest shipwrecks on the route from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.

The boat was carrying 305 people from Djibouti to Yemen when it capsized on Thursday night or early Friday, the UN agency said. More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals.

IOM Chief of Mission in Djibouti Alexandre Coissac told AP by phone that the migrants boarded the vessel on the evening of October 8 and that it sank soon afterwards, close to shore, mainly because it was overcrowded.

The 139 figure covers only the bodies buried by Djibouti authorities. Some migrants buried others themselves, and those will not be added to the official count until authorities verify the bodies, Coissac said.

“What is terrible is that they were buried with no names, in a common grave, like in a war situation,” he said. “They all have a mother, a father, and we may never learn what happened.”

He said local authorities did their best but were overwhelmed by the number of bodies washing ashore at once.

Survivors are being taken to the IOM rescue centre in Obock, a coastal town in northern Djibouti, where they are receiving medical care for swallowed seawater and psychological support. Coissac, who visited the area on Saturday, said they were all in a state of shock.

Some survivors already know that relatives died in the shipwreck. Others were given phones to tell their families back home that they are alive.

A video shared by the IOM showed shoes and other personal belongings, believed to be the migrants’, scattered on a beach as rescue work continued.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa travel through Djibouti and cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway between Africa and Yemen, hoping to reach wealthy Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia in search of work, the IOM said.

The flow has continued even as fighting escalates in Yemen between the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels. In recent weeks, at least 2,000 Yemenis have received aid in Djibouti, moving in the opposite direction.

More than 900 migrants died or went missing along the route last year, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.

“This is a devastating loss of life,” Coissac said.

IOM Director-General Amy Pope said, "No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way.” She urged governments and donors to expand safe and legal migration pathways before another boat sinks.

Source: AP