NAIROBI: At least 20 people drowned after smugglers threw dozens of migrants overboard during a crossing between Djibouti and Yemen, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Thursday.
“Survivors believe at least 20 people have been killed. There are still some unaccounted for. Five bodies washed up onshore,” said Yvonne Ndege, IOM regional spokesperson for the East and Horn of Africa, told AFP.
At least 200 migrants, including children, were aboard the vessel when it left Oulebi in Djibouti in the early hours of Wednesday for Yemen, survivors told the IOM.
About thirty minutes into the voyage across the Gulf of Aden the smugglers panicked, survivors said, throwing around 80 people overboard before turning the vessel back toward Djibouti.
“Of the 80 people who were forced off, only 60 made it back to shore,” Ndege said.
Five bodies were recovered Wednesday and there are fears the death toll could still rise.
The survivors are receiving medical treatment in the Djibouti port town of Obock and testimonies are still being collected.
Two similar incidents in the Gulf of Aden in October claimed the lives of at least 50 migrants, the IOM said.
20 migrants dead after thrown into sea off Djibouti
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20 migrants dead after thrown into sea off Djibouti
- At least 200 migrants, including children, were aboard the vessel when it left Oulebi in Djibouti in the early hours of Wednesday for Yemen
- About thirty minutes into the voyage across the Gulf of Aden the smugglers panicked, survivors said, throwing around 80 people overboard
US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean
- Venezuela has relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains
- The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.
Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.
Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that US forces boarded the Veronica III, conducting “a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.”
“The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon said. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.”
Video posted by the Pentagon shows US troops boarding the tanker.
The Veronica III is a Panamanian-flagged vessel under US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil, TankerTrackers.com posted Sunday on X.
“Since 2023, she’s been involved with Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil,” the organization said.
Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, told The Associated Press in January that his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of the quarantine.
The Trump administration has been seizing tankers as part of its broader efforts to take control of the Venezuela’s oil. The Pentagon did not say in the post whether the Veronica III was formally seized and placed under US control, and later told the AP in an email that it had no additional information to provide beyond that post.
Last week, the US military boarded a different tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Aquila II. The ship was being held while its ultimate fate was decided by the United States, according to a defense official who spoke last week on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing decision-making.
