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MMC East and Southern Africa Snapshot - August 2022: Interactions between local communities and transiting migrants in Djibouti

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Yibuti
+ 3
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MMC
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The Eastern corridor from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula has traditionally been one of the busiest maritime routes with 394,622 migrant arrivals since 2018.1 The journey undertaken by predominantly Ethiopian migrants2 can involve several stops at key transit locations to rest, look for smugglers, or work.3 In these locations, migrants’ interactions with local communities are linked to their need for information, for assistance and services, and for income-generating opportunities as well as on potential shared cultural and ethnic affiliations. Recognizing that local communities in transit locations are key stakeholders in the migration process, MMC and IOM have partnered under the 2022 Regional Migrant Response Plan for the Horn of Africa and Yemen to design and implement a mixed-methods study to generate an evidence-base on the dynamics between local communities and transiting migrants along the Eastern Route.

The study has targeted three key transit locations along the Eastern Route: Hargeisa in the Somaliland region, and Obock and Tadjourah in Djibouti. This snapshot presents the main findings on interactions between migrants and local communities in Tadjourah and Obock, based on 365 surveys conducted with local community members in July 2022 (Map 1).4 Both locations are significant migrant hubs where smugglers organize and facilitate journeys and maintain direct contact with interlocutors in Ethiopia and Yemen.5 Tadjourah is located on the main migration corridor used by transiting migrants, between the capital, Djibouti Ville, and Obock, the main point of embarkation for coastal departures to Yemen.

Key findings

• The vast majority (90%) of surveyed local community members interact with migrants on a daily basis, and 10% interact weekly.

• The provision of free assistance (81%) is the most common type of interaction between local community respondents and migrants, followed by commercial/economic interactions (33%), the provision of free information (29%), and social interactions (16%).

• Free assistance is primarily given in the form of water (97%) and food (92%).

• The type of free information shared by the local community with migrants includes what conditions to expect along the journey (50%), the conditions at the destination (40%), locations along the route (38%), the duration of the journey (38%), and the cost of the journey (22%).

• Commercial/economic interactions in Tadjourah often involved migrants working for local community respondents (64%; 49/77), particularly in domestic work (80%; 39/49).

• In Obock, commercial, economic interaction mostly saw migrants as clients of local businesses (60%; 33/55).