ReportageWith the hope of arriving one day in Saudi Arabia and making a living there, thousands of Oromo left Ethiopia, before the Covid pandemic, to embark, on foot, in a hellish crossing. Photographer Oliver Jobard followed them in their ordeal.
It is a road of suffering, of death, of deceived hopes: it shaves the Bab Al-Mandab, the “door of tears” (or lamentations) whose name, figuratively, designates the entrance to the Red Sea, between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. A stage along a road of several thousand kilometers, taken by the damned from Ethiopia who brave death to go to Saudi Arabia.
The men and women, often very young, very poor, who cross, on foot, the mineral expanses of Djibouti or the coastal zone of southern Yemen, almost all belong to the Oromo group, the most important of Ethiopia, of which they constitute about a third of the population (some 30 million people). From their campaigns, they try to reach the Gulf countries in the hope of finding work there. To do this, you have to pass through Yemen, plunged into the civil war since 2015.
The burning desert in flip flops
At the end of 2019, Charles Emptaz and Olivier Jobard traveled the hardest part of this route. Arrived from Ethiopia, hundreds of men and women cross the Djibouti border on foot to reach the coast. They advance, some in flip flops, in Bermuda shorts, in this desert of burning rocks. Those who survive reach the Gulf of Aden. They embark on board dhows to Ras Al-Arah, on the south coast of Yemen.
The candidates for the better world pass on the other bank, change continent. Some will be kidnapped, tortured, ransomed. From this crossing of hell, the two journalists reported a rare documentary, of a sadness which takes in the throat (Yemen: forced march, 2019, available for replay on Arte).
When this work was done, more than 20,000 people passed by each month, without outside help, without humanitarian organizations and witnesses. Now the “road to death” is cut. What the cholera epidemic that has plunged Yemen in recent years (more than 1 million cases, 2,000 dead) had not managed to do, Covid-19 did it: the Yemeni smugglers stopped their activity . Thousands of these stranded travelers in Aden remain, the most abandoned of the abandoned.
Oromo migrants cross the Galafi region, on the border between Ethiopia and Djibouti. This mineral desert is one of the hottest regions in the world. Olivier Jobard / MYOPIn the vicinity of Obock in Djibouti. After six days of travel, Magdess, a 25-year-old Ethiopian, succumbed to dehydration. The group with which she was traveling left the same night to embark on Yemen. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn a beach north of Obock, Djibouti. After several days of walking, the migrants arrive opposite the Strait of Bab-El-Mandeb, which separates Aden from the Red Sea. These natives of the central plains of Ethiopia have never seen the sea. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn a beach north of Obock in Djibouti. Olivier Jobard / MYOPEach night, around a thousand migrants are conveyed by smugglers to the least watched beaches, north of Obock, in Djibouti, from where they will be embarked on dhows for crossing the Strait. Olivier Jobard / MYOPIn Dikhil, near Djibouti, these migrants rented an enclosure for the villagers for the night. The Oromo route contributes to the local economy along the route. Olivier Jobard / MYOPA dhow where 70 Oromo migrants were piled up for the four to six hour crossing of Bab El-Mandeb between Djibouti and Yemen. Some of these traditional wooden boats carry up to 300 migrants. Olivier Jobard / MYOPAn Oromo adolescent girl aboard the overcrowded dhow while crossing the Gulf of Aden. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn board the dhow, on the approach to the Yemeni coast. Olivier Jobard / MYOPArrival on the Yemeni coast. Olivier Jobard / MYOPArrival on the coast, near Ras-Al-Arah in Yemen. Oromo migrants begin their long march through this country destroyed by the civil war. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn the road to the south coast of Yemen, between Ras-El-Arah and Aden. The Oromo walk four to five days to reach the big city of the South from their landing point. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn the road to the south coast of Yemen, between Ras-El-Arah and Aden. Women, four times less likely to migrate than men, often access paid journeys by car. But some still have to walk with men. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOnce they have entered Yemen, the migrants attempt to cross the 1,000 kilometers that separate them from Saudi Arabia on foot. Few manage to do so. Exhaustion, kidnappings, dehydration, the road to Yemen is a deadly crossing. Olivier Jobard / MYOPHungry for the days of walking between Ras el Arah and Aden, the Oromo beg for leftovers in a roadside restaurant. Olivier Jobard / MYOPOn the way to the southern coast of Yemen, hungry Oromo migrants hurry to swallow leftover food left behind by Yemeni truck drivers. Olivier Jobard / MYOPA group of Oromos migrants settled in front of an abandoned stadium in Aden, the capital of South Yemen. After traveling thousands of kilometers, they try to work and beg in the hope of continuing their journey to Saudi Arabia. Olivier Jobard / MYOP
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