At least nine people are dead and 45 are missing after a migrant boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti.
The boat was en route to Yemen, the UN migration agency reported on Friday.
It capsized on Tuesday while attempting to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz — Tehran's chokehold in the ongoing Iran war — are on opposite sides of the Arabian Peninsula.
A search continues for possible survivors, said Tanja Pacifico, IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti.
“The sea is very rough, and there were also strong winds," Pacifico told a regular U.N. press briefing in Geneva by video. "
This route is known to be a very deadly one.”
She said that testimonies from the survivors described “an extremely heavy load for the boat.”
The tragedy marks the latest in a series of deadly shipwrecks between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Over recent years, several thousand African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty, hoping to reach wealthy Gulf Arab countries, have died.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the boat, carrying more than 300 people, had left the Djiboutian port town of Obock.
The shipwreck was the first this year in the area, Pacifico said. Last year, more than 900 migrants died or went missing on the route, the highest toll on record on the strait, the IOM said.
The passage typically lures tens of thousands of migrants from Africa "in search of safety and economic opportunities," the agency said.
Last month, 53 migrants, including two babies, are feared dead after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast of Libya, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Monday.
Two Nigerian women were rescued after the vessel overturned north of Zuwara, Libya, in the early hours of Friday morning. One survivor said they had lost their husband, while the other reported losing her two babies when the boat sank.
The boat, which was carrying migrants and refugees from African countries, departed from al-Zawiya, Libya, at around 11pm on Thursday 5 February. It capsized around six hours later after taking on water.
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