2025 deadliest year for migrants on eastern route, IOM report shows

[Deeq A.]

Ethiopian migrants walking through Somaliland. More Ethiopians than Somalis are irregularly migrating to Kenya, according to a new report by IOM. (Photo: The New Humanitarian)

• By Mary Wambui

According to the report, at the end of 2025, there were an estimated 400 stranded people in Djibouti, 6,600 in Somalia, and 132,300 in Yemen.

2025 was the deadliest year for migrants plying the eastern route, a report released by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) this week has revealed.

IOM tracking shows that in 2025, 922 deaths and disappearances were recorded along the eastern route, almost double the 558 reported in 2024.

This makes 2025 the deadliest year on record for the Missing Migrants Project since its launch in 2014, with a minimum total of 4,368 cases on the route to date. In the fourth quarter of 2025, at least 32 people died or went missing along the route. Violence was the leading cause of death (14),” the report reveals.

According to the report, at the end of 2025, there were an estimated 400 stranded people in Djibouti, 6,600 in Somalia, and 132,300 in Yemen.

In Somalia, the stranded population was up by 55 per cent from 2024 (4,200). In the last quarter of the year, migrants were reportedly exposed to armed violence, arrests, floods, detention and mistreatment, deportation, hazardous transport, insecurity, and reduced support from local communities due to drought along the route.

“A deteriorated humanitarian situation in Yemen has resulted in reports of stranded migrants and detention and mistreatment of women in smuggling dens,” IOM explains.

IOM says the route remains one of the busiest and riskiest migration routes in the world, travelled by hundreds of thousands of migrants, most of whom travel irregularly, often relying on smugglers to facilitate movement.

The migrants move through multiple states in the region, amongst them, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen, to the Gulf states.

The report notes that migrants and smugglers have devised new routes to circumvent police checkpoints in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen.

As such, tracked outgoing movements increased by around one‑fifth (+18 per cent) between 2024 (430,200) and 2025 (506,600).

“This increase reflects new smuggling tactics that both bypassed checkpoints and accelerated flows, including the growing use of more remote routes across Djibouti alongside renewed enumerator access to landing sites along the Ta’iz coast, Yemen,” says the report.

Economic factors continue to be the primary migration driver (95 per cent), with conflict, violence or persecution accounting for 4 per cent, mirroring trends observed in 2024.

“Ethiopian (97 per cent) and Somali (3 per cent) nationals remained the primary nationalities reported, alongside smaller numbers of Eritrean (335), Democratic Republic of the Congo (144), Sudanese (3), and Yemeni (1) nationals. Movements from Central Africa, particularly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remain limited but have increased compared to previous years (24 in 2023),” the report adds.

The report, however, projects that the projected growth in Ethiopia’s economy in 2026 may reduce some exit movements on the route by addressing livelihood‑related drivers.

It notes that improved financial means may also enable individuals to pursue migration aspirations that were previously unattainable.

Qaran News