In 2025, the East Route – connecting the Horn of Africa to the Gulf countries via Djibouti and Yemen – was deemed the “deadliest year ever recorded” by the IOM, with over 900 migrants dead or missing; between 200 and 300 people arrive in Obock every day, fleeing mostly from the armed conflicts in Ethiopia.
Testimonies gathered in Obock reveal extreme conditions: smugglers cramming 320 people onto a small boat, migrants being beaten with sticks, women abandoned in the desert at 45°C, and mass graves holding over 200 bodies around the Djiboutian coast.
Facing the increasing flow, the IOM warns that each year is “more deadly than the previous one,” and resources are lacking to address a humanitarian crisis largely ignored by Western media in favor of other migration routes.
By Dylan Gamba – Reporting from Obock, Djibouti
On a vast sandy plain in Djibouti, scorched by the sun, groups of men walk towards a distant home after failing to reach Yemen via the East Route linking the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.
Their features are drawn, their bodies emaciated. Some say they haven’t eaten for days. Only a few acacias offer occasional shade. In this April, for the Djiboutians, it is “winter” and it is 35°C.
Like the vast majority of migrants taking this route, 25-year-old Jemal Ibrahim Hassan comes from neighboring Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous country with around 130 million inhabitants, plagued by multiple armed conflicts. He left his region, Amhara, due to the war between rebels and federal forces.
“We had nowhere to live in peace,” stresses the young man who used to earn a living as a farmer when he left his village in northern Ethiopia towards Djibouti. A journey of about 550 km on foot, equivalent to 15 days of walking. “Our feet were swollen and covered in blisters,” he recalls.
One evening, he boards an overcrowded boat bound for Yemen. Several hours later, they are intercepted by Yemeni coastguards and taken to a detention center. “There was no food, nothing. We stayed there for eight days before they sent us back to Djibouti,” he recounts. During the return trip, a storm breaks out. “If it wasn’t for the will of Allah (…), the boat would have capsized,” says Jemal, who now walks again, around fifty kilometers north of the Djiboutian coastal town of Obock, heading to Ethiopia.
“The East Route is one of the deadliest in the world. In 2025, over 900 migrants perished or went missing, making it the ‘deadliest year ever recorded,'” according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In late March, in the latest shipwreck near Obock, at least nine migrants died, 45 went missing.
In the boat that capsized was Zinab Gebrekristos, 20, who left Tigray, the unstable region in northern Ethiopia, after a bloody war in 2022. She paid a smuggler 50,000 birr (about 270 euros), a significant sum in a country where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. On the way, she was robbed of her money and phone, then spent three days on the Djiboutian coast, “without food or water, just the desert.”
On the evening of March 24, smugglers crammed 320 people onto a small boat. “The boat started sinking quickly,” remembers Zinab Gebrekristos, “many people died in front of us, friends and family members.” “I don’t even know how I managed to get out of the boat,” she says from an IOM reception center in Obock.
The UN organization regularly patrols the desert to assist migrants. From the Khor Angar post, Djiboutian coastguards make multiple interventions to try to stop the smugglers, mostly Yemenis. About ten seized boats face the post. “They are ‘crammed’ in these small wooden boats,” says Ismaël Hassan Dirieh, post commander. “There are two levels, some go downstairs, others upstairs,” he describes a “very difficult” journey for the migrants.
After crossing war-torn Yemen, tens of thousands of people each year reach the Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, where they work as laborers or domestic workers.
About fifty kilometers north of Obock, the Gehere beach is one of the departure points. Migrants’ clothes, flip-flops, and shoes litter the fine sand. A cairn is erected. “We are facing two mass graves,” explains Dr. Youssouf Moussa Mohamed, 38, head of the IOM in Obock.
“Not far away, there are two more mass graves with five bodies. Behind that mountain, there is a mass grave with 50 bodies. Another mass grave with 43 bodies (…), totaling over 200 bodies buried around,” he enumerates.
According to Dr. Youssouf, 98% of migrants he meets are Ethiopians.
Originating from a landlocked country, most have never seen the sea before attempting the crossing. Between June and August, the mercury rises in Djibouti to 45°C, and violent sandstorms blind migrants and lead them astray. Many get lost in the desert.
“We found about twenty bodies per month during this (hot) season last year,” notes Dr. Youssouf. Those not killed by the sea or the desert sometimes take matters into their own hands, like a migrant who, he recounts, hanged himself last year, “out of despair.” In the Obock cemetery, where migrants who died at sea or on the road have been buried for several years now, dozens of mounds of earth are lined up.
From Tigray, Genet Gebremeskel Gebremariam, 30, struggled to support her four children and mother with the 200-300 birr (1-2 euros) she earned daily as a farm worker. Convinced by a smuggler, she left the regional capital Mekelle squeezed against over 160 people in the back of a truck. Disembarked in the neighboring Afar region, they continued on foot, “crossing the desert and climbing cliffs all night.”
“No one helps those who are tired or fall, they are left behind. We were forced to walk like soldiers, while being beaten with sticks on our backs. Many women, weakened by thirst and hunger, were abandoned in the desert,” recounts Genet, who waits at an IOM center to return to Ethiopia.
On his part, Muiaz Abaroge still hopes to reach Saudi Arabia, despite the risks. “It’s scary, but I have no other choice,” says the 19-year-old from western Ethiopia, walking with two others on the road linking the Djiboutian towns of Tadjourah and Obock. “I know many people have perished, but I must overcome this ordeal.”
Faced with the growing influx of migrants, “resources are lacking,” notes Dr. Youssouf, who fears 2026 could be another record year: “each year is ‘more deadly than the previous one.’ And we don’t exactly know when it will continue.”
