Most migrants attempt to cross from Djibouti
At least 900 migrants were killed or disappeared in the Red Sea in 2025, making this year the “deadliest year ever” for the Eastern Route, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced this Wednesday.
“The year 2025 was the deadliest ever recorded on the Eastern migratory route, [que liga o Corno de África à Península Arábica]with 922 people dead or missing, double the number of the previous year”, declared the IOM head of mission in Djibouti, Tanja Pacifico, adding that “the majority of victims were from Ethiopia”.
Every year, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa, often from Ethiopia and Somalia, travel this “Eastern Route” to try to reach the oil-rich Gulf countries, thus fleeing conflicts, natural disasters and their countries’ unfavorable economic prospects.
Most migrants attempt to cross from Djibouti.
Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the African continent with around 130 million inhabitants, has more than 40% of its population living below the poverty line, according to the World Bank (WB).
The African country is the scene of armed conflicts in its two most populous regions and has just emerged from a bloody civil war in the Tigray region (north), which caused more than 600,000 deaths between 2020 and 2022, according to an estimate by the African Union (AU), considered underestimated by several experts.
Around 1,300 people have died of hunger and lack of medicine in displacement camps across Tigray since the end of the war, a local official said on Monday, cited by the France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
According to the United Nations agency, the economic growth forecast for 2026 in Ethiopia, of around 10%, “could reduce some migratory movements along the Eastern Route”, but inflation, around 10% in February, is “likely to compromise economic progress and continue to fuel migratory pressures”.
Among those who manage to complete the crossing, many are stranded in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, ravaged by a civil war for almost 10 years, where they try to survive in difficult conditions. Some migrants who are stranded in this country prefer to return.
