At least eight smugglers, all Somali, sat among them. They snatched the few things the migrants had brought: clothes, cold water, dates to sustain them on the journey. One smuggler sat and ate their dates in front of them.

On Friday, Mr. Sayado, who left school after eighth grade, sat on the floor of the Yemeni mosque, with not even a pair of flip flops to his name. He said he would go to Aden to try to find work. How would he get there? He had no idea, saying only that there was no work at home. His father, with two wives, had 30 children in all.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, says that more than 55,000 Ethiopians and Somalis have made the crossing this year. Last year, 117,000 arrived in Yemen — and that number, said Laurent de Boeck, the agency’s chief of mission in the country, includes only those who could be counted. More than half were under the age of 18.

Mr. de Boeck said he had been stunned to hear the rationale offered by a boy who told aid workers that he didn’t care that Yemen, his destination, was at war. “He responded at 12, ‘I don’t mind because I’m already dead,’” Mr. de Boeck said. “They don’t see a future.”

The smugglers change the routes frequently, more so now because of heightened surveillance on the Yemeni side of the coast. Mr. de Boeck said it was highly unusual to encounter two boats both throwing their passengers into the sea, two days in a row.

The good swimmers made it to the shore. They helped those they could. They buried others whose bodies washed up.

Masno Taha Momi, 18, was among the group that arrived on Thursday. Her husband, she said, had been detained by the Ethiopian authorities after taking part in a protest at Haramaya University, where he was studying.