AP
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The UN Immigration Agency said eight migrants died on Wednesday, and 22 others were left missing after 22 people were kicked out of a boat near the coast of Djiboutias.
The International Migration Agency, or the IOM, said in a statement that migrants were part of a group of 150 people who were forced to unload their boats by smugglers and swim to the coast on June 5th.
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 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.