Searching for a Better Life, Young Ethiopians Risk All to Reach Saudi Arabia

Last year, nearly 235,000 people left Ethiopia and headed towards the Red Sea coastline, according to the International Organization for Migration, the UN’s migration agency. The country is Africa’s second largest by population, but it has been wracked in recent years by successive crises, including various ethnic armed conflicts and related economic instability. Much of this Ethiopian exodus has been directed along the so-called “Eastern migration route”, which crosses the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden into Yemen, and ultimately Saudi Arabia…The journey takes [migrants] into a dark, transnational economy fuelled by human suffering. Along the route, people smugglers and violent militias prey on their desperation for profit. Many die along the way. And for those lucky enough to reach Saudi Arabia itself, further dangers lurk – including…the terrors of the country’s prison system…Saudi Arabia has been heavily criticised by human rights groups for its treatment of migrants, both legal and irregular. Legal migrants face various forms of exploitation, including forced labour, excessive working hours, and wage theft, according to Amnesty International. Irregular migrants face even more severe treatment. In 2023, a report by Human Rights Watch documented numerous “mass killings” of Ethiopian migrants by Saudi border guards. (The New Humanitarian)