Where to next? Eritrean displacement amidst shrinking spaces of refuge

MMC Research Report, April 2025

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Summary and key findings

1 With no reliable estimates of how many Eritreans are leaving the country, evidence suggests that fewer are departing from Eritrea due to insecurity in Ethiopia and Sudan. In November 2024, UNHCR noted that 20,000 Eritreans had entered Ethiopia so far that year (UNHCR (2024) UNHCR calls for the need for protection of Eritrean asylum seekers in Ethiopia) and that 6,704 Eritreans had entered Sudan (UNHCR (2024).

Sudan: Eritrean Refugees Overview in Sudan (as of 30 June 2024)). That would be about 50% of the estimated 4,000-5,000 Eritreans said to be leaving their country on a monthly basis around 2012-16. Living conditions in Eritrea appear to have become harder due to the long-term economic effects of the strict COVID-19 lockdown in Eritrea and the involvement of the Eritrean government in surrounding conflicts.

2 In this report, we use the terms smuggling and trafficking in line with the definitions established by the Palermo Protocol of 2000.

This summary refers to key trends described across two reports on the situation of Eritreans on the move. This report – ‘Where to next?’ – details the country-level changes in policy that have affected Eritrean mobility dynamics over the past decade, while the second report – ‘Shifting protection experiences of displaced Eritreans’ – analyses the key trends in how Eritreans have experienced and responded to these changes and provides recommendations based on findings from across the two.

Together these reports examine how political, security, and policy changes across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe have systematically reduced Eritreans’ access to safe refuge, despite their continued displacement in significant numbers, while also undermining existing support systems.

They respond to the notion that though Eritreans were among the largest groups reaching Europe via the Central Mediterranean route in the mid-2010s, by 2024, Eritrean arrivals had dropped by almost 90%.

This was the case even though departures from Eritrea had not massively decreased.1 Through interviews with displaced Eritreans and key informants (KIs), this research seeks to understand how the dynamics of Eritrean mobility have adjusted to externalisation policies, shrinking spaces of refuge, and compounding regional crises.

It analyses the shifting conditions surrounding protection and access to livelihoods of Eritreans in different countries, the heightened risks of (im)mobility that result from this and suggests ways in which this population might be better supported.

The key findings include:

  • Shrinking spaces of refuge for displaced Eritreans have heightened this population’s vulnerability, for example, by impeding their access to identity and travel documentation and to registration procedures and through destroying their livelihoods and local support networks.
  • Shifting alliances in the region have affected Eritrean refugees, particularly by disrupting their abilities to access asylum and safety in neighbouring countries and by heightening the risk of deportations back to Eritrea.
  • Protection needs in refugee camps are extremely high throughout the Horn of Africa. Camps are increasingly sites of violence where international and national assistance are insufficient. Camps across Ethiopia and Sudan are characterised by limited access to health care, education, food, water and sanitation, and legal assistance. The situation is likely to worsen given the cuts to the aid sector.
  • Cities are increasingly the only sites where Eritreans may be able to access basic levels of safety, services, and legal support, despite the risks of increasing deportations and arbitrary detentions. Project respondents attest to the growing importance of key cities across Africa (primarily Cairo, Kampala, and Addis Ababa and less so Juba, Port Sudan, and Nairobi) in the journeys of displaced Eritreans, as reflected in the growing numbers moving to these metropolitan areas.
  • Outbreaks or escalations of violence across the Horn of Africa and North Africa, combined with stricter border policies, have disrupted established migration routes and smuggling networks,2 leading to more predatory business models and undermining ‘service delivery’ in some areas.

Where to next? Eritrean displacement amidst shrinking spaces of refuge

  • Despite the ongoing role of transnational networks to support Eritreans, the accumulated crises that Eritreans have faced across North, East and the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and the lack of improvements in living conditions in Eritrea, are straining systems of community support.
  • Resettlement opportunities, particularly to Canada, have been a key factor behind Eritreans ‘staying put’ in certain spaces, and not embarking on more dangerous and expensive irregular, onward movements. Canada’s decision to suspend new registrations for private resettlement for at least 2024-2025 may affect Eritreans’ decision-making about what routes to take, as well as their livelihoods and living conditions in the places where they are currently waiting for this process.
  • Several factors led to the sharp drop in Eritreans crossing Mediterranean Sea to Europe, including: a reduction in the number of Eritreans leaving their country; the extreme risks that Eritreans – perhaps even more than other nationalities – face in Libya, including due to inhumane detention practices, kidnapping and trafficking; a disruption of the smuggling networks – primarily those in Libya – that used to facilitate Eritrean onward movement; the high risks along previously used migration routes through Ethiopia and Sudan due to conflict; the opportunities offered by emerging places of refuge in the region, despite their significant challenges too; and the hope to access resettlement to a third country from those places, instead of embarking on costly and dangerous journeys. This drop, however, is not likely to be permanent, as the root causes of Eritrean migration remain unchanged and there are signs that the situation for Eritreans in key cities in the East, Horn, and North Africa is deteriorating while numbers are increasing and the opportunities for safe, legal onward migration remain very limited.