Saudi Arabia deported 26,400 Ethiopians during the first three months of 2026, more than doubling the number recorded over the same period last year, according to a new report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The figures add to mounting concern over the safety and treatment of Ethiopian migrants traveling the so-called Southern Route into the Gulf, a corridor that has long carried some of the highest risks in African labor migration.
The IOM's report does not attribute the sharp rise to a single cause. Ethiopians make up one of the largest populations of irregular migrants in Saudi Arabia, many of whom entered through Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden or Red Sea from Djibouti or Somaliland.
The scale of the increase stands out even against a backdrop of an already familiar deportation pattern. A separate repatriation operation in August flew 1,708 Ethiopians home aboard eight flights — a discrete event that the quarterly figure now dwarfs. The 26,400 figure represents a much broader accounting of deportations across the first quarter of 2026, not a single flight operation, and underscores that repatriation flights of that kind represent only a fraction of the total return flow from the Kingdom.
For Ethiopian households, the Gulf migration corridor is not an abstraction — it is a livelihood strategy passed between siblings, cousins, and neighbors, often financed through community lending circles or family remittances sent to cover a broker's fee. Domestic work in Saudi Arabia has long been one of the primary channels through which Ethiopian women have sought employment in the Kingdom, and returns of this scale are felt directly in households across Addis Ababa, Hargeisa, and towns throughout Oromia and Amhara regions.
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The route itself carries risks well before any deportation occurs. Migrants crossing from the Horn of Africa into Yemen have faced extortion, detention, and, in some documented cases, violence at the hands of smuggling networks and armed groups operating along transit points. The IOM's report does not detail the specific circumstances under which the 26,400 deportations took place, but it situates the figure within a broader pattern of concern the organization has tracked regarding migrant safety along the corridor.
The IOM has not indicated whether the pace recorded in the first quarter is expected to continue through the remainder of 2026, and the report stops short of projecting annual totals. What is clear from the data released so far is that the deportation trend has accelerated sharply compared to the same period last year. For families with relatives working in the Kingdom, the figures land as one more data point in a migration story that has, for over a decade, moved faster than the policy responses meant to make it safer.