Somalia - Ahmed Hassan Roba, aged 72, spent six years stranded in Puntland, Somalia after unsuccessfully trying to cross the Gulf of Aden to find a job in Saudi Arabia. 

“I left my home in Ethiopia and tried to cross the sea, but when my relatives could not help me (financially) to continue my journey, I decided to stay in Garowe (Puntland) and beg outside the mosques and in the streets,” he says.

Ahmed Hassan Roba finally managed to return to Ethiopia last week, as part of a group of 65 vulnerable, stranded Ethiopian migrants who travelled home with IOM assistance.

The operation was closely coordinated with IOM sub-offices in Bosasso, Garowe, Hargeisa and Jijiga, together with humanitarian partners and the governments of Ethiopia, Puntland and Somaliland.

IOM Ethiopia staff met the migrants at the Somaliland border and provided transport to Addis Ababa. In Addis they were given temporary accommodation, food, onward transportation and reintegration cash assistance.

Puntland is experiencing growing numbers of stranded Ethiopians, following Saudi Arabia’s 2013 decision to deport over 150,000 irregular Ethiopian migrants. 

Every year thousands of Ethiopian migrants try to cross the Gulf of Aden to reach Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states, mostly in search of work.

According to the multi-agency regional Mixed Migration Task Force, in 2013 over 107,000 irregular migrants made the journey, 85 per cent of them Ethiopians.

The voluntary return operation, part of IOM’s Regional Mixed Migration Programme, was funded by the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees (PRM).

For more information, please contact

Craig Murphy
IOM Somalia
Email: cmurphy@iom.int