From School to The Harsh Desert
When a smuggler promised 12-year-old Kalifa Rashid a well-paying job as a camel herder abroad, he left his hometown in Jimma in the Oromia Region of Southwestern Ethiopia to traverse a path frequented by migrants traveling to Gulf countries.
“I had noticed over time that some of my classmates were
disappearing from school. When I asked where they went, I was told they had
left the country to find work,” he recalls, recounting how he left home.
“One day, a stranger appeared outside the school gates and
began mingling and conversing with us. He told us there were plenty of jobs outside
the country, and we did not have to pay anything upfront.”
Dreaming of making money, one day Kalifa went straight from
school to a meeting spot where an unknown smuggler arranged for a guide to take
him to another smuggler. He boarded a bus and after a short ride with other
people, resumed his journey on foot.
Despite promises of a short journey that would only take a
few days, Kalifa soon discovered that this was not true. He had to trek a long
distance on foot across harsh desert in Ethiopia’s Afar Region, before crossing
the border into Djibouti where he stayed for weeks languishing in the heat
waiting for a boat to take him to Yemen.
“It was a grueling journey with little food and a lot of
thirst. It took me a month to get to Yemen, and I still had a long road ahead
of me. I was lucky to get a few vehicle rides, but I had to walk with others
most of the way,” he says, explaining how he travelled with fellow migrants he
met along the way.
Kalifa passed through the hands of many smugglers whom he
promised to pay once he found a job. Many migrants who embark on the Eastern
Migration Route to the Gulf States do not make it, and Kalifa is grateful he
was not kidnapped or held for ransom by traffickers who lurk on this route.
Rashid, Kalifa’s father, was working in the coffee fields
when the news of his son’s disappearance reached him. The 40-year-old father of
ten survives by growing coffee seedlings and selling them to farmers in Toba
town, some 150 km from Jimma city.
“The seedlings I was preparing were almost ready and only a
few weeks from being sold. But when I heard that my son had gone away on this
perilous route, I had no choice but to abandon everything and go after him.”
Rashid, himself a returning migrant who made the same risky
journey 15 years ago, understood what his son would be going through.
“I had to get to him before this mistake cost him his life,”
he explains.
He was forced to choose between rescuing his son and risking
the entire family's livelihood.
“That was a difficult choice, but I could not save a tree
while my son was in danger. I had to go after him and save him from imminent
death,” he says.
Rashid had to give up one of his two oxen to make the voyage
to Yemen.
“I sold it for 35,000 birr (USD 650) and used the proceeds
to pursue my son. I hitched a ride on trucks for most of my journey to catch up
to him. I thought the money would be enough. But I ran out of cash and needed
to have an additional 10,000 birr (USD 230) sent to me to take trucks in Yemen
to reach him.”
He says he saw the bodies of migrants and others suffering
from gunshot wounds on his journey in Yemen. After weeks on the road, Rashid
finally found his son on the way to a neighboring country. The road Kalifa was
found on is plagued by traffickers who kidnap, imprison and torture migrants
for hefty ransoms.
“As my chances of catching up to Kalifa were dwindling with
each passing day, I was overjoyed when I finally found him. He was parched, and
hungry. I couldn't believe it when I saw him,” Rashid says.
Despite happily reuniting, they were unable to immediately
return home as they could not find safe transportation and had run out of
money.
At that point they came upon the International Organization
for Migration (IOM), which aids migrants stranded in Yemen to return home
through the generous funding received from King Salman Humanitarian Aid and
Relief Centre (KSrelief). They were some of the hundreds of returnees who made
it back to Ethiopia on a Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) flight last month.
“I am relieved that I returned home with my son alive,” says
Rashid, speaking from IOM’s Transit Centre in Addis Ababa. “Now we must return
home, and I must begin again, while he must return to school. After seeing the
suffering, I hope he has learned his lesson and will concentrate on his
studies. If he refuses to attend school, he could assist me in the field. It is
his decision.”
Kalifa says after experiencing such adversity, he will not
attempt this route again and will tell his peers at school about the hazards
connected with such a decision.