ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — When 19-year-old Nigus Yosef informed his dad and mom he was going to depart residence in Ethiopia’s Tigray area and attempt to get to Saudi Arabia, they begged him to not go.
Two of their youngsters had already made the crossing, through the Gulf of Aden after which war-torn Yemen. Yosef’s brother is now in jail in Yemen for coming into that nation illegally. His sister made it to Saudi Arabia, additionally illegally, which implies it is going to be troublesome for her to depart.
On August 3, 2025, Yosef and 5 mates from his city of Adi Qeyih boarded a ship certain for Yemen. That evening, it capsized. Solely 56 individuals of the almost 200 individuals on board survived. Yosef was not one in every of them.
“His dad and mom are in deep shock and grief,” his uncle, Redae Barhe, stated in a phone interview. “They will’t even voice their sorrow.”
Nigus Yosef is one in every of 132 lacking from the boat that capsized this month; one in every of numerous individuals from African international locations gone lacking on a journey in quest of a brand new life.
Journeys fraught with hazard
The households they go away behind know that there are excessive odds of misfortune. Boats are sometimes overcrowded, unable to face up to tough seas. As soon as on dry land, there are different risks. Migrants are weak, with few assets or safety, making them simple prey for human traffickers and kidnappers.
Senait Tadesse says that her 27-year-old daughter made it to Yemen, solely to be held captive by kidnappers who communicated with Tadesse via Fb, demanding a US$ 6,000 ransom to launch her solely little one.
Tadesse stated in an interview with The Related Press within the capital, Addis Ababa, that she offered her automotive and all her jewellery to lift the money and deposited the cash in an Ethiopian checking account.
However the kidnappers demanded extra. She offered all her belongings; they nonetheless needed extra. Not figuring out what else to do, she went to the police, armed with the native checking account quantity that the abductors had been utilizing.
In the meantime, she was on Fb, making an attempt to get information of her daughter. Ultimately, a publish from a survivor confirmed that Tadesse’s daughter had been killed. Thus far, no arrests have been made.
Pushed by desperation
Though Ethiopia has been comparatively steady because the struggle within the nation’s Tigray area led to 2022, youth unemployment is excessive and there are nonetheless pockets of unrest.
“Many younger individuals now not see a future for themselves inside a nation that doesn’t prioritize their wants,” defined Yared Hailemariam, an Ethiopian human rights advocate primarily based in Addis Ababa. “The reason for this migration is lack of financial alternatives and rising conflicts. Younger persons are confronted with a selection of both taking over arms to battle in infinite conflicts, or offering for his or her households.”
The struggle in Tigray was the explanation why Nigus Yosef by no means completed college. When the battle began in 2020, he was in seventh Grade, and he dropped out to hitch the Tigray armed forces. When the ceasefire was signed in 2022, he got here again residence, however couldn’t discover a job. After three years, he was determined.
Residents within the area say that traffickers seize on that desperation, and that their networks prolong even into distant areas and rural villages.
Eden Shumiye was simply 13 when she left Adi Qeyih with Yosef and his mates. Her dad and mom say that she was preyed on by individuals smugglers through the city’s public market day, and that they satisfied her to depart with the group. Her dad and mom heard nothing from her till one of many different migrants referred to as them after they reached Wuha Limat, close to the Ethiopia-Djibouti border. The information left them sick with fear.
After the boat capsized, a relative of one of many survivors managed to ship a voice message to them from Saudi Arabia through the messaging app Imo, confirming that Eden’s useless physique had been recovered. Of the six younger individuals who left Adi Qeyih, solely two survived.
“Her mom is heartbroken,” Eden’s father, Shumiye Hadush, informed The Related Press. “The ache is actually overwhelming.”
Ethiopia points a warning
In response to the current tragedy, the Ethiopian authorities issued an announcement warning residents “to not take the unlawful route,” and to “keep away from the providers of traffickers in any respect value,” whereas urging individuals to ”pursue authorized avenues for securing alternatives.”
However Girmachew Adugna, a migration scholar specializing in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, factors out that authorized migration channels are gradual and time-consuming. “Passports are arduous to acquire because of rising prices,” he says. “Younger individuals usually have little or no entry to authorized migration pathways, which leads them emigrate via irregular means.”
Greater than 1.1 million Ethiopians had been categorised as migrants who left their residence nation and had been residing overseas in 2024, up from about 200,000 recorded in 2010, in accordance with United Nations figures.
Despite Yemen’s civil struggle, the variety of migrants arriving there has tripled from 27,000 in 2021 to 90,000 final 12 months, the U.N. Worldwide Group for Migration, or IOM, stated final month.
To achieve Yemen, migrants are taken by smugglers on usually harmful, overcrowded boats throughout the Purple Sea or Gulf of Aden. The IOM stated not less than 1,860 individuals have died or disappeared alongside the route, together with 480 who drowned.
“Our youth are dying due to this harmful migration,” says Eden Shumiye’s father Hadush. “They fall sufferer to the cruelty of traffickers. When will this tragedy come to an finish?”
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Related Press author Khaled Kazziha in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
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