Ethiopia is planning to bring back 70,000 of its citizens who have been residing in poor conditions in Saudi Arabia.
The decision, which was declared last week in Addis Ababa, will start being implemented in early April.
State Minister Birtukan Ayano announced that the repatriation, which is the third of its kind since 2018, will focus on assisting "Ethiopians who are in a difficult situation," the state Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported.
While the government in Addis Ababa does not officially disclose the exact cost of the program, Birtukan stated that it is essential to allocate funds, arrange logistics, and establish shelters for the returnees, the ENA said.
The repatriation expenditures will reportedly encompass flight tickets, temporary accommodation at transition centers in Addis Ababa, transportation charges to return to their native regions, and a financial allowance to facilitate the process of rebuilding their lives.
In March 2022, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement to repatriate over 100,000 Ethiopians as Saudi Arabia faced allegations from rights groups regarding its mistreatment and killing of foreign laborers.
Furthermore, Ethiopia reportedly didn’t provide clarification regarding the legal status of the returnees from Saudi Arabia in this new scheme. However, previous evaluations conducted by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) revealed that the majority of them were either unemployed or engaged in informal, low-skilled employment. For example, in 2023, out of 42,948 registered Ethiopian migrants, 59% were unemployed.
The IOM also noted previous hardships that the returnees experienced upon their arrival back in Ethiopia.
"Given this sudden and unprepared forced repatriation, the reintegration of Ethiopian returnees has been painfully slow and largely unaddressed. Most returnees face severe difficulties in reintegrating, as they return empty-handed because they used their earnings for living expenses and remittances. Many of them also experienced severe hardships during their stay and during return, causing medical and psychological conditions," the report read.
Ethiopia does not forget about its citizens, even abroad, despite having a significant number of internally displaced persons. Acquired between August and September 2023, the IOM data showed that over 3.45 million individuals were internally displaced in Ethiopia. The report indicated that the primary factors contributing to displacement were conflict (64%), drought (17%), and social tension (9%).
Since November 2020, Ethiopia has been engulfed in a fierce internal conflict as the Tigray People's Liberation Front launched a series of attacks on the country's national military bases. In response, the federal government launched an offensive in the northern region.
In November 2022, the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan rebels reached a peace agreement, ending two years of armed conflict.
However, last August, a state of emergency was declared in the northern region of Amhara due to the fighting between the regional Fano militia and the Ethiopian armed forces caused by the federal government's attempt to disarm the group and take control over security in the region.
This February, the country extended the state of emergency for another four months to cement peace in the region.