ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — When 19-year-old Nigus Yosef instructed his dad and mom he was going to go away 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, by way of the Gulf of Aden after which war-torn Yemen. Yosef’s brother is now in jail in Yemen for getting into that nation illegally. His sister made it to Saudi Arabia, additionally illegally, which implies it is going to be tough for her to go away.
On August 3, 2025, Yosef and 5 buddies from his city of Adi Qeyih boarded a ship certain for Yemen. That evening, it capsized. Solely 56 folks of the almost 200 folks 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, mentioned 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 folks 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 resist tough seas. As soon as on dry land, there are different risks. Migrants are weak, with few assets or safety, making them straightforward 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 by way of Fb, demanding a US$ 6,000 ransom to launch her solely little one.
Tadesse mentioned in an interview with The Related Press within the capital, Addis Ababa, that she bought her automobile and all her jewellery to boost the money and deposited the cash in an Ethiopian checking account.
However the kidnappers demanded extra. She bought all her belongings; they nonetheless wished extra. Not understanding 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, attempting 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 for the reason that battle within the nation’s Tigray area resulted in 2022, youth unemployment is excessive and there are nonetheless pockets of unrest.
“Many younger folks 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 alternative of both taking over arms to battle in countless conflicts, or offering for his or her households.”
The battle in Tigray was the explanation why Nigus Yosef by no means completed faculty. When the battle began in 2020, he was in seventh Grade, and he dropped out to affix 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 buddies. Her dad and mom say that she was preyed on by folks smugglers in the course of the city’s public market day, and that they satisfied her to go away 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 by way of the messaging app Imo, confirming that Eden’s lifeless 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, instructed The Related Press. “The ache is really overwhelming.”
Ethiopia points a warning
In response to the current tragedy, the Ethiopian authorities issued a press release warning residents “to not take the unlawful route,” and to “keep away from the companies of traffickers in any respect price,” whereas urging folks 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 sluggish and time-consuming. “Passports are laborious to acquire as a consequence of rising prices,” he says. “Younger folks usually have little or no entry to authorized migration pathways, which leads them emigrate by way of 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 response to United Nations figures.
Despite Yemen’s civil battle, 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, mentioned final month.
To succeed in Yemen, migrants are taken by smugglers on usually harmful, overcrowded boats throughout the Pink Sea or Gulf of Aden. The IOM mentioned a minimum of 1,860 folks 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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