East Africa and the Horn of Africa — Mixed Migration in the Horn of Africa and in the Arab Peninsula (June—December 2017)

74,654 migrants were tracked between June and December 2017 through the network of 25 flow monitoring points in Yemen (7), Somalia (12) and Djibouti (6). Two main migration trends were observed: one was to reach the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or other Gulf Countries (46%), the other is the circular movement between Somalia (20.3%) and Kenya (14.1%). Migrant Response Center (MRC) and Migrant Response Point (MRP) data shows that of the 6,080 contacts which were registered across the 8 facilities present in the region, almost 99% were Ethiopians. Regionally, 80% of contacts were male and 20% were female, but with significant differences in the proportion of females across countries (Somalia 32%, Ethiopia and in Djibouti 20%, and Yemen only 11%). Children regionally made up for 20% of the contacts. A total of 3,325 unaccompanied children were tracked during this time, the majority in Djibouti (62%), followed by Yemen (31%) and Somalia (7%). Following the end of the amnesty period for expulsions of irregular migrants from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on the 15th of November 2017, forced returns spiked 4 folds totalling 54,092.