Destitute migrants pile up in Djibouti as Yemen sends boats back
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GENEVA- Thousands of Ethiopians trekking through desert heat and war in Yemen for the sake of a low-paid job in Saudi Arabia risk getting stuck in an overcrowded migrant camp in Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday.
Three boatloads have recently been returned from the Yemeni port of Aden, potentially closing a route used by 10,000 migrants per month, mainly Ethiopians from the Oromia and Tigray regions and Somalis.
"If they increase deportations we are going to get people stuck here," IOM's regional director Jeffrey Labovitz told reporters in Geneva by phone from Djibouti.
The transit camp at Obock, comprising some tents and corrugated metal sheets and concrete blocks, has swollen from a few hundred people to 600 or 700, and IOM fears another 3,000 deportees could arrive within days.
