EU-IOM Joint Initiative

for Migrant Protection and Reintegration

At only 20 years old, Tiguiist left Ara, a small village in Ethiopia, to join her husband in Yemen. That was 10 month ago. The couple had survived on small jobs in Ethiopia, motivated by the shared goal of ultimately travelling to Saudi Arabia to find work.

It was not long that they put their plan into action. Tiguiist’s husband left first. However, shortly after crossing the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti and meeting up with him in Yemen, Tiguiist realized she was pregnant.

Suddenly getting to Saudi Arabia had become more urgent as she needed to be there in time to deliver the baby. But border closures on account of Covid-19 did not allow the couple to leave Yemen. They were stuck.

Months went by and the situation did not improve. As the day of delivery approached, Tiguiist decided to return to Ethiopia. Her husband arranged the return trip, paying 1000 Riyal (about 225 Euros) for a smuggler to take her back to Djibouti. Together with a cousin and 19 other people they boarded a makeshift boat headed for Obock, a coastal town in Djibouti.

The crossing was difficult as evidenced by Tiguiist’s narration. "It was a small fishing boat. We were on top of each other. We arrived around dawn and were left several metres from the shore. I thought I was going to drown; the water was up to my neck. I couldn't move forward, I had no strength left. I was very afraid. Luckily one of the people in the boat helped me to get to land.”

Back on Djiboutian territory, Tiguiist was taken in by Coast Guard personnel who referred her to IOM. Again, due to Covid-19 the border was closed and hence it was nearly impossible for her to return to Ethiopia. IOM's team took her to the Obock Migration Response Centre (MRC) where she was taken care of. 

A few days after her arrival, Tiguiist was driven to hospital where she gave birth to a baby girl, Guinat.

The young mother is now staying at a shelter in Djibouti City run by Caritas Djibouti, one of IOM’s implementing partners. The shelter usually provides protection, food and psychosocial assistance to vulnerable children, many of whom are themselves migrants living on the streets.

As he continued on his way to the Gulf alone, Guinat’s father had only seen pictures of his daughter. Together with Tiguiist he is among the thousands of men, women and children who make the perilous journey through Djibouti, a major transit country mainly for Ethiopian or Somali migrants travelling to the Gulf states. 

However, due to current movement restrictions and border closures, many more migrants find themselves stranded. Large numbers are opting to return to Djibouti from Yemen to continue on to their home countries.

In July 2020 alone, 858 migrants, including 129 women, returned from Yemen to Obock. Since May 2020, a total of 1,210 migrants (of whom 20% are women) have returned from Yemen, according to data collected by IOM.

Thanks to the financial support of the European Union, IOM continues to offer assistance to migrants caught up in these circumstances. Since the beginning of the year, 805 migrants have benefitted from IOM’s support within the scope of two programmes funded by the European Union Trust Fund. They are the Durable Solutions for Refugees, Host Communities and Vulnerable Migrants in Djibouti and the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa.