More than 11,000 migrants from the Horn of Africa arrived in Yemen last October despite escalating fighting between government forces and the Houthis along the country's coasts facing their transit routes. Ethiopians accounted for the vast majority of arrivals, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The organization recorded a slight decrease in the number of arrivals compared to the previous month amid security tensions along the western coast and disruptions to boat traffic in maritime corridors, particularly in the Bab al-Mandeb area.
In its monthly flow monitoring report, the IOM stated that it tracked the arrival of 11,677 African migrants last month, marking a 1.2 percent decline compared to September, which saw 11,841 arrivals.
The organization attributed this decrease primarily to escalating fighting that disrupted boat movements and limited the ability of field teams to safely gather information and monitor migration flows.
According to data from the organization's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), Djibouti topped the points of departure, accounting for 60.6 percent of the total recorded flows, followed by Somalia at 36 percent, while 3.4 percent arrived from Oman.
The Abyan Governorate received 94 percent of the migrants departing from Djibouti, compared to 6 percent who arrived in the Taiz Governorate.
Demographically, the migrants comprised 70 percent men, 14 percent women, and 16 percent children.
Despite the slight decline in October, the total number of African migrants arriving in Yemen since the beginning of this year has risen to 145,776, most of them Ethiopians, even as military escalation along Yemen's Red Sea coast threatens one of the key maritime transit routes from Djibouti.
Yemen serves as a major transit point for tens of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict, poverty, and drought in the Horn of Africa, who take the perilous "Eastern Migration Route" across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in hopes of reaching Gulf countries in search of job opportunities.
Migrants stranded in Yemen face dire humanitarian conditions amid ongoing armed conflict and deteriorating basic services, in addition to the risks of exploitation, detention, and difficulties moving across frontlines, according to repeated UN and human rights reports.
