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As the truck traveled south, Yosef Moliso and the other Ethiopian migrants trapped inside their sealed cargo container hit the walls for help as they struggled to breathe.
When the border guards in Mozambique stopped the vehicle for inspection, Yosef had passed out, although it could have been much worse: 64 of his fellow migrants had already died of suffocation.
“It was very hot inside, like a fire,” recalled Yosef, one of 14 survivors of the unfortunate attempt to reach South Africa, where migrants hoped to earn enough money to lift their Ethiopian families out of poverty. .
“If I ever meet the responsible people, I will grab them and yell at them until the police come.”
Ethiopia is one of the top five countries of origin for the more than four million migrants in South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized economy, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The deaths in March, one of the worst incidents of this kind for Ethiopian migrants in recent memory, highlighted the dangers faced by thousands of young men who travel along what is known as the “Southern Route” each year. .
But the path ahead for the few who survived helps explain why the route remains so popular.
On Friday, Yosef and 10 other migrants were planning to leave an IOM-run center to board buses back to their regions of origin.
In interviews with AFP, the men said they were happy to be back in Ethiopia, but admitted that they only had confusing ideas about how they could be sustained in the future.
“It’s not easy being a young Ethiopian, just sitting at home and not having a job. That’s what forces them to leave,” said Sara Basha, IOM’s program coordinator in Ethiopia.
“Once they return home, with incidents like this, they return to a community where they no longer have anything. They are still vulnerable, so frustration could lead them to decide to leave again. ”
-Trip-
Tigestu Birhanu was inspired to emigrate by one of her cousins, who moved from her home region of southern Ethiopia to South Africa a few years ago.
Tigestu, 20, didn’t know exactly what this cousin was doing, but he knew it was lucrative: The cousin’s remittances helped his family buy a house and a new car.
After the cousin offered to pay Tigestu, other immigrants said the current rate on the Southern Route was 200,000 Ethiopian birr, or nearly $ 6,000, the decision was obvious.
Starting with two men from the same area, Tigestu embarked on months of difficult travel, sometimes walking, sometimes riding on the back of motorcycles or trucks.
The group of migrants grew as the journey progressed.
Food was scarce, and the men often slept outside in “jungles” to avoid detection by authorities, Tigestu said.
They were led by a network of smugglers of various nationalities, a configuration Basha said complicates efforts to identify and prosecute those who put migrants at risk.
When migrants first saw the cargo container they were supposed to hide inside to cross into Mozambique, many resisted, having heard choking horror stories.
But the traffickers threatened them with machetes, and Tigestu said they had no other choice.
Like Yosef, Tigestu passed out before border guards forced the container open to let migrants out.
When he woke up in a hospital a few days later, he learned that although he had survived, the other two men from his home region had not.
-Breaking up-
Ethiopia is taking steps to curb risky migration to the south as well as along equally dangerous routes to eastern Saudi Arabia and northern Europe, Basha said.
Authorities are trying to strengthen law enforcement investigative capacities and collaborate more with neighboring countries, he said.
Police spokesmen declined to comment on Mozambique’s deaths, but IOM officials said Ethiopian officials had recently interviewed the survivors as part of an investigation.
However, just as important is trying to give young people more opportunities within Ethiopia to make them less desperate to leave, Basha said.
In addition to helping survivors such as Yosef and Tigestu recover economically, IOM is putting extensive pressure on Ethiopia to focus more energy on youth unemployment, a problem that could be even more serious due to the economic recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic .
As for Yosef and Tigestu, they both said that after surviving their ordeal in Mozambique, they had no plans to try their luck as immigrants again.
“When I woke up I was very sad for those who died,” said Yosef, “and I said to myself that it would be better to be a beggar in Ethiopia.”
by Robbie COREY-BOULET
