The group included 22 unaccompanied minors, including a 12-year old girl named Ayisha. “I left Jijiga for Saudi Arabia with a friend of mine who is 20. My friend told me that I could work with her. I was living with my grandmother and was going to school. When I heard about the war in Yemen, I decided to come back home from Djibouti. But my friend continued to Yemen,” she said.

Ayisha and the other 21 (boys) are undergoing family tracing and reunification procedures at the IOM transit centre in Addis Ababa, in close coordination with UNICEF and the Ethiopian Ministry of Women Children and Youth Affairs.

Through its Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) program, IOM Djibouti has been helping hundreds of vulnerable Ethiopians to return home. In October 2015 alone, it repatriated 137 Ethiopians, 29 of them unaccompanied minors.

For further information, please contact Alemayehu Seifeselassie at IOM Ethiopia, Tel: +251.11. 6611117 (Ext. 455), Mobile: +251.91.163-9082 Email: salemayehu@iom.int