Yemen's coastlines witnessed one of the highest waves of illegal migrants during the last three months of 2025, highlighting the country's role as the main gateway on the Eastern Route, primarily for populations originating in the Horn of Africa.
In a report summarizing findings from October 1 to December 31, 2025, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said a total of 62,779 movements were documented, including 57,340 inflow migrants arriving in Yemen and 5,439 outflow migrants departing the country.
It said the majority of migrants were male, with men older than 18 accounting for 77% of the total.
The IOM report also showed that the majority of the migrants - 68% - came from Djibouti and landed in the Taiz, Abyan and Shabwah governorates. Somalia accounted for 22% of the remaining departure points to Yemen.
Data collected in this period showed that arrivals in Yemen always reached more than 2,000 individuals per week. The highest arrival recorded occurred in the last week of December.
The majority of migrants arriving in Yemen planned to head from there to various Gulf countries, while some 15% said Yemen was their final destination.
Migrants departing Yemen primarily aimed to travel to Djibouti before continuing their journeys to their origin countries.
Humanitarian and security challenges
The report said Yemen’s role as a crucial transit country and, at the same time, a point of forced reversal for vulnerable populations is highlighted by the continuity of this outgoing flow.
Given that the outflow includes vulnerable people like children, pregnant women, and unaccompanied minors who must make the dangerous reverse sea journey to the Horn of Africa, this dynamic indicates serious protection risks.
During the monitoring period, a total of 5,439 outgoing migrant movements were noted. These were all non-Yemeni migrants, 96% of whom started heading back towards the Horn of Africa after failing to reach intended destinations, while the rest turned to Oman.
The majority of migrants arriving in Yemen during the reporting period were Ethiopian nationals, accounting for 97% of the total, while 3% were Somali nationals, with other nationalities representing less than 1%.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that security authorities in Shabwah announced the arrival of 200 illegal migrants on the coast of Kida, raising the total number of arrivals in January to 890.
All of the migrants are Ethiopian, the Ministry said.
