ADDIS ABABA: The deadly shipwreck in waters off Yemen’s coast over the weekend is weighing heavily on the hearts of many in Ethiopia. Twelve migrants on the boat that carried 154 Ethiopians survived the tragedy — at least 68 died and 74 remain missing.
When Solomon Gebremichael heard about Sunday’s disaster, it brought back heartbreaking memories — he had lost a close friend and a brother to illegal migration years ago.
“I understand the pain all too well,” Gebremichael told The Associated Press at his home in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
Although Ethiopia has been relatively stable since the war in the country’s Tigray region ended in 2022, youth unemployment is currently at over 20%, leading many to risk dangerous waters trying to reach the wealthy Gulf Arab countries, seeking a better life elsewhere.
Mesel Kindeya made the crossing in 2016 via the same sea route as the boat that capsized on Sunday, traveling without papers on harrowing journeys arranged by smugglers from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia.
“We could barely breathe,” she remembers of her own sea crossing. “Speaking up could get us thrown overboard by smugglers. I deeply regret risking my life, thinking it would improve my situation.”
Kindeya made it to Saudi Arabia and worked as a maid for six months, before she was captured by authorities, and imprisoned for eight months. By the time she was deported back to Ethiopia, she had barely managed to earn back the initial cost of her journey.
“Despite the hardships of life, illegal immigration is just not a solution,” she says.
Over the past years, hundreds of migrants have died in shipwrecks off Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished country that has been engulfed in a civil war since September 2014.
“This shows the desperation of the situation in Ethiopia for many people,” according to Teklemichael Ab Sahlemariam, a human rights lawyer practicing in Addis Ababa.
“They are pushed to head to a war-torn nation like Yemen and onward to Saudi Arabia or Europe," he told the AP. “I know of many who have perished.”
And many of those who get caught and are sent back to Ethiopia try and make the crossing again.
“People keep going back, even when they are deported, facing financial extortion and subjected to sexual exploitation,” the lawyer said.
Ethiopia's foreign ministry in a statement on Monday urged Ethiopians “to use legal avenues in securing opportunities.”
“We warn citizens not to take the illegal route in finding such opportunities and avoid the services of traffickers at all cost,” the statement said.
African Union spokesperson Nuur Mohamud Sheek called for urgent collective action in a post on social media “to tackle the root causes of irregular migration and the upholding of migrant rights and to prevent further loss of life.”
Yemen is a major route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa countries.
About 60,000 migrants arrived in Yemen last year, down from 97,200 in 2023 — a drop that has been attributed to greater patrolling of the waters, according to a March report by the UN’s migration agency, the International Organization for Migration.
In March, at least two migrants died and 186 others were missing after four boats capsized off Yemen and Djibouti, according to the IOM.
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Faced with hardships at home, Ethiopians risk dangerous seas for a better life elsewhere
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Faced with hardships at home, Ethiopians risk dangerous seas for a better life elsewhere
- In Ethiopia, youth unemployment is currently at over 20%, leading many to seek a better life elsewhere
- Yemen is a major route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa countries
Ancient cures and AI: WHO seeks evidence for traditional medicine
- The World Health Organization opens a major conference on traditional medicine on Wednesday, arguing that new technologies, including artificial intelligence
NEW DELHI: The World Health Organization opens a major conference on traditional medicine on Wednesday, arguing that new technologies, including artificial intelligence, can bring scientific scrutiny to centuries-old healing practices.
The meeting in New Delhi will examine how governments can regulate traditional medicine while using emerging scientific tools to validate safe and effective treatments.
The UN body hopes this push will help make ancestral practices more compatible with modern health care systems.
“Traditional medicine is not a thing of the past,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video released ahead of the three-day conference.
“There is a growing demand for traditional medicine across countries, communities, and cultures.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his own message, said the summit would “intensify efforts to harness” the potential of traditional medicine.
Modi is a longtime advocate of yoga and traditional health practices and has backed the WHO Global Center for Traditional Medicine, launched in 2022 in his home state of Gujarat.
Shyama Kurvilla, the head of the center, said reliance on traditional remedies was “a global reality,” noting that 40-90 percent of populations in 90 percent of WHO member states used them.
“With half the world’s population lacking access to essential health services, traditional medicine is often the closest — or only care — available for many people,” she told AFP in New Delhi.
’Evidence-informed’
The UN agency defines traditional medicines as the accumulated knowledge, skills and practices used over time to maintain health and prevent, diagnose and treat physical and mental illness.
But many lack proven scientific value, while conservationists warn that demand for certain products drives trafficking in endangered wildlife, including tigers, rhinos and pangolins.
“WHO’s role, therefore, is to help countries ensure that, as with any other medicine, traditional medicine is safe, evidence-informed, and equitably integrated in systems,” Kurvilla added.
Kurvilla, who studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and taught global health policy at Boston University, said that “40 percent or more of biomedical Western medicine, pharmaceuticals, derive from natural products.”
She cited aspirin drawing on formulations using willow tree bark, contraceptive pills developed from yam plant roots and child cancer treatments based on Madagascar’s rosy periwinkle flower.
The WHO also lists the development of the anti-malaria treatment artemisinin as drawing on ancient Chinese medicine texts.
’Frontier science’
“It’s a huge, huge opportunity — and industry has realized this,” Kurvilla.
Rapid technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, had pushed research to a “transformative moment,” to apply scientific rigour to traditional remedies.
The WHO will also launch what it calls the world’s largest digital repository of research on the subject — a library of 1.6 million scientific records intended to strengthen evidence and improve knowledge-sharing.
Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s chief scientist, said AI can assist in analizing drug interactions.
“Artificial intelligence, for instance, can screen millions of compounds, helping us understand the complex structure of herbal products and extract relevant constituents to maximize benefit and minimize adverse effects,” she told reporters ahead of the conference.
Briand said advanced imaging technologies, including brain scans, were shedding light on how practices such as meditation and acupuncture affect the body.
Kurvilla said she was excited by the possibilities.
“It is the frontier science that’s allowing us to make this bridge... connecting the past and the future,” she said.
The meeting in New Delhi will examine how governments can regulate traditional medicine while using emerging scientific tools to validate safe and effective treatments.
The UN body hopes this push will help make ancestral practices more compatible with modern health care systems.
“Traditional medicine is not a thing of the past,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video released ahead of the three-day conference.
“There is a growing demand for traditional medicine across countries, communities, and cultures.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his own message, said the summit would “intensify efforts to harness” the potential of traditional medicine.
Modi is a longtime advocate of yoga and traditional health practices and has backed the WHO Global Center for Traditional Medicine, launched in 2022 in his home state of Gujarat.
Shyama Kurvilla, the head of the center, said reliance on traditional remedies was “a global reality,” noting that 40-90 percent of populations in 90 percent of WHO member states used them.
“With half the world’s population lacking access to essential health services, traditional medicine is often the closest — or only care — available for many people,” she told AFP in New Delhi.
’Evidence-informed’
The UN agency defines traditional medicines as the accumulated knowledge, skills and practices used over time to maintain health and prevent, diagnose and treat physical and mental illness.
But many lack proven scientific value, while conservationists warn that demand for certain products drives trafficking in endangered wildlife, including tigers, rhinos and pangolins.
“WHO’s role, therefore, is to help countries ensure that, as with any other medicine, traditional medicine is safe, evidence-informed, and equitably integrated in systems,” Kurvilla added.
Kurvilla, who studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and taught global health policy at Boston University, said that “40 percent or more of biomedical Western medicine, pharmaceuticals, derive from natural products.”
She cited aspirin drawing on formulations using willow tree bark, contraceptive pills developed from yam plant roots and child cancer treatments based on Madagascar’s rosy periwinkle flower.
The WHO also lists the development of the anti-malaria treatment artemisinin as drawing on ancient Chinese medicine texts.
’Frontier science’
“It’s a huge, huge opportunity — and industry has realized this,” Kurvilla.
Rapid technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, had pushed research to a “transformative moment,” to apply scientific rigour to traditional remedies.
The WHO will also launch what it calls the world’s largest digital repository of research on the subject — a library of 1.6 million scientific records intended to strengthen evidence and improve knowledge-sharing.
Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s chief scientist, said AI can assist in analizing drug interactions.
“Artificial intelligence, for instance, can screen millions of compounds, helping us understand the complex structure of herbal products and extract relevant constituents to maximize benefit and minimize adverse effects,” she told reporters ahead of the conference.
Briand said advanced imaging technologies, including brain scans, were shedding light on how practices such as meditation and acupuncture affect the body.
Kurvilla said she was excited by the possibilities.
“It is the frontier science that’s allowing us to make this bridge... connecting the past and the future,” she said.
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