Look east: Ethiopians’ grim migration path

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Raghav Bikhchandani & Yash Budhwar

Content advisory: The following item contains graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault.

Look east: Ethiopians’ grim migration path

At least 76 people have died after a boat carrying more than 150 migrants capsized off the southern coast of Yemen—while enroute to Saudi Arabia, a route that has become one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

So why were they there in the first place?

The route: This was a movement of migrants trying to reach oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE in search of work. They start their journey primarily from Ethiopia—crossing over to Djibouti and then taking a boat across the Red Sea to Yemen. The goal is to eventually make it into Saudi Arabia through Yemen’s long, porous northern border.

Here’s what that route looks like on a map:

But the journey is one which most don't finish.

The deadly path: The route—also called the “eastern route”—is "one of the busiest and most perilous mixed migration routes":

Ayla Bonfiglio of the Mixed Migration Centre research and policy organisation told Agence France-Presse: “This route is predominantly controlled by smugglers and human-trafficking networks … Refugees and migrants have no other alternative but to hire their services. “Migrants are well aware of the risks, but with no legal pathways and families relying on remittances from Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, many feel they have no choice.”

That's not all: Dangers don’t end at sea as "thousands of migrants had become stranded in Yemen and suffered abuse and exploitation during their journeys."

In this most recent case, officials say the boat was dangerously overcrowded and lacked basic safety gear like life vests:

“Many of the bodies have been found scattered along various parts of the coastline, raising fears that more victims remain missing at sea,” say the authorities in Abyan, a southern Yemeni province... “The underlying cause of boats capsizing in the Eastern Route is due to smugglers filling boats over capacity and not providing enough life vests on board..."

Point to note: This is not a one-off. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says at least 558 people died on this same sea route in 2024—mostly due to boat accidents. In March this year, four migrant boats capsized and at least 186 drowned. And in June, smugglers forced 150 people off a boat mid-sea—killing at least eight. Yet, more than 60,000 people attempted this route in 2024 alone.

Why take this route? At 96%, the vast majority of migrants attempting this dangerous route are Ethiopians who are not only seeking better livelihoods in the Gulf but are also escaping brutal conditions back home in provinces like Amhara and Tigray—ravaged by war. Data to note: “The number of exit movements from Tigray more than doubled (+112%) between 2023 (34,092) and 2024 (72,222), representing around one-third (31%) of all exits in 2024 (18% in 2023)”.

FYI: The Ethiopian civil war may have ended on paper with a peace deal between the government and the Tigray-based rebel group in 2022, but the on-ground reality for locals in Tigray remains a humanitarian crisis:

People are grappling to get basics like food, water and medicine. The regional economy was devastated by the war. There have been no rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts so far. Humanitarian aid is limited. Imagine if your local grocery store ran out of everything and couldn’t restock.

Recent reporting by The Guardian also revealed the scale of mass sexual violence soldiers from Ethiopia and Eritrea have committed against ‘tens of thousands’ of women in Tigray since 2020—genocide via destroying their fertility:

Medical records and X-rays obtained by the Guardian and reviewed by independent medical specialists show a pattern of cases where women have had foreign bodies forced into their reproductive organs, including nails, screws, plastic rubbish, sand, gravel and letters.

The letters – written by their rapists, wrapped in plastic and inserted into the women’s uteruses – make their intentions clear. Several mention bitter border disputes with Tigray in the 1990s, and promise vengeance: “Have you forgotten what you did to us in the 90s? We did not forget. From now on, no Tigrayan will give birth to another Tigrayan.”

But, but, but: Ethiopia is not the only country in the region embroiled in civil war—so is Yemen since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels ousted the Saudi-backed government in Sana’a. As a result of the war and instability, Yemen is a dangerous yet unavoidable part on the migration route to Saudi Arabia for Ethiopians—who have often been caught in the crossfire or trapped in the country amid border closures:

In April, at least 60 migrants were killed when U.S.-made bombs struck a detention center in the northern province of Saada, according to health officials in the Houthi-controlled government. For years, many migrants also have been trapped in Yemen sometimes because of closed borders and limited job opportunities in the Gulf. They often face abuse and sexual exploitation, according to aid groups. Others are trafficked by smugglers who demand more money from them or their families back home in order to release them.

Yet this major issue appears to have gone under the radar in mainstream international media—since it’s not involving Europe or North America—but migrants moving from one non-white country to another.

New York Times (login required) and BBC News report on the latest capsizing incident while the UN’s migration organisation has migration data from the past year. The Conversation and The Guardian have more on how war and sexual violence have devastated Tigray.

A major labour lawsuit looms against FIFA

Football’s global governing body is bracing itself for a landmark class action lawsuit over longstanding transfer regulations that have now been ruled as unlawful. As many as 100,000 players have banded together seeking compensation, potentially to the tune of billions of euros. It risks redefining a lucrative commercial backbone of the sport—the transfer market.

How do football ‘transfers’ work: They refer to players moving from one football team to another—basically changing jobs, but in terms of teams ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ from each other. In order to acquire the services of a player contracted to a particular team, the ‘buying’ team has to not only agree personal terms with the player directly but also pay the ‘selling’ team a suitable fee as compensation.

Point to note: Transfer fees between clubs were mandatory until 1995—when a European Court of Justice decision known as the Bosman ruling allowed players to directly join new teams within the European Union (EU) on ‘free transfers’ if they let their contracts with their previous teams expire.

The Lassana Diarra case: In 2013, French midfielder Lassana Diarra signed a four-year contract with Russian team Lokomotiv Moscow but the deal was terminated a year later amid a dispute over his salary. Lokomotiv and Diarra filed claims against each other at FIFA’s dispute resolution chamber. It eventually ruled in Lokomotiv’s favour, fining Diarra €10.5 million ($12.1 million) and banning him from playing for 15 months.

After his ban ended, Diarra signed with Belgian club Charleroi but there was a large legal catch which scuppered the deal:

Charleroi wanted confirmation from Fifa that Diarra would be able to move and that his new club would not be liable for any of the costs owed to Lokomotiv. Fifa did not give those guarantees, with its rules mandating that an international transfer certificate must be granted by the league a player is leaving before any deal could take place. With no money having been paid to Lokomotiv that permit was not forthcoming.

EU to the legal rescue (again): In light of this predicament, Diarra sued FIFA in a Belgian court, stating that the governing body’s rules—that made any new club jointly liable with him to pay that fine to Lokomotiv—restricted his free movement within the EU under the 1995 Bosman ruling. The case slowly made its way up to the EU level and in October 2024, the European Court of Justice sided with Diarra:

The rules in question are such as to impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club. Those rules impose considerable legal risks, unforeseeable and potentially very high financial risks as well as major sporting risks on those players and clubs wishing to employ them which, taken together, are such as to impede international transfers of those players.

What happened next: FIFA has appealed the EU court’s decision in the Belgian appeals court—which is yet to produce a verdict. In December 2024, the governing body announced minor changes to its regulations on calculating fines for contract breaches—which football players’ union FIFPro criticised for introducing “without a proper collective bargaining process” and for not addressing the EU court’s decision.

What happened now: Buoyed by the EU’s ruling on Diarra, a Dutch group named Justice for Players foundation—representing 100,000 footballers—is filing a class action lawsuit against FIFA in the Dutch district court, which allows claims from EU as well as UK-based workers. The group’s central claim is that since 2002, the footballers have lost 8% of their potential career earnings due to FIFA’s unlawful transfer regulations—which cumulatively could add up to billions of euros:

The logic here is that players have simply not exercised their right to terminate contracts because the consequences were so onerous and uncertain, whereas clubs have frequently ripped up deals knowing the system was stacked in their favour.

FYI: The group is being advised by Jean-Louis Dupont—who was not only Diarra’s lawyer but also represented Jean-Luc Bosman in 1995 in the Bosman ruling case.

Why any of this matters: Diarra’s case and the impending lawsuit show the potential ripple effects of the EU court upholding free movement for players. Some experts say it goes far beyond the Bosman ruling by shifting more bargaining power to players (and their agents) over clubs than ever before. The more tempered take is that only two aspects of FIFA’s rules are affected: “how the compensation a club is due when a player unilaterally terminates their contract is decided, and the idea that their new club is collectively responsible for the breach.”

But whichever way you look at it, FIFA’s last hope at fully preserving the status quo rests with the Belgian appeals court.

The Athletic (login required) reports on the impending class action lawsuit. ESPN has more on the EU court’s October 2024 verdict. For the most detailed coverage and analysis on why the Diarra case matters, check out The Guardian.

Devastating flashfloods in Uttarkashi

On Tuesday afternoon, Uttarkashi’s Dharali village—which is a stopover for several Char Dham yatris and tourists—saw a massive flashflood with the river Kheer Ganga destroying several hotels, shops, and restaurants in its wake.

Casualty count: Four people have died and several are feared to be trapped in the debris. The Indian Army—who’d been camping 10 minutes away at Harsil—were able to rescue 37 people. But soon after, the Army Camp also got flooded. At least 10 soldiers are missing and, overall, about a 100 people are missing in Uttarkashi.

The reason for the flooding: Though the state government claims that the floods were due to a cloudburst, experts say that is unlikely. According to a hotelier, “It did not rain enough for a cloud burst.”

FYI: The current settlement of Dharali was built in 1835 on top of the silt and debris brought by a previous flood. Geologist SP Sati claims people have encroached on the river’s course by building houses and homestays on it. Plus, the state "high court had directed the state government after the 2013 Kedarnath deluge not to allow any construction near rivers, nallahs and hills, but neither the government nor the residents took it seriously."

You can see the instant flooding below. Hindustan Times and Indian Express have more.

Dental floss could replace injections one day

Injections are the most common form of vaccination. Now, a study has found a novel approach for delivering vaccines into the body—through dental floss!

How it works: The idea is that a jab or injection produces antibodies directly in the bloodstream throughout the body, but not on the “mucosal surfaces”—which is the soft tissue that lines our body’s organs in the digestive, respiratory and reproductive systems. Pathogens like influenza and COVID-19 can enter the body through these mucosal surfaces.

Enter, dental floss: Dental floss can deliver or deposit the medicine through a deep tissue between the tooth and the gum, for a much better effect:

We found that applying vaccine via the junctional epithelium produces far superior antibody response on mucosal surfaces than the current gold standard for vaccinating via the oral cavity, which involves placing vaccine under the tongue. The flossing technique also provides comparable protection against flu virus as compared to the vaccine being given via the nasal epithelium.

The dental floss vaccination method was first tested on mice. Then, researchers tested the method on humans by using dye-coated floss picks to see how deeply the floss could reach between the teeth and gums—and found that about 60% of the dye was deposited in the gum pocket, suggesting it could work for vaccine delivery.

Who will benefit from this approach: For one, it is easy to administer, and secondly, it may be a blessing for people who are afraid of jabs or have issues with needles. But of course, it is not practical for people with gum disease or for infants and toddlers who do not have teeth yet. (News Medical)

MAP Academy fellowships alert!!

Editor’s note: As you know, the wonderful MAP Academy is our content partner for Advisory. It is one of the few Indian institutions deeply invested in cultural research and education. They also offer rare funded opportunities for researchers, designers, archivists, journalists, writers and educators. The Nalli Fellowship is one of them.

Over to MAP Academy…

We’re pleased to announce that a new cycle of the MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowships will open to applications soon. Designed to support research and practice in South Asia’s diverse textile traditions, the Fellowship is born out of a collaboration between MAP Academy and Nalli Silks, a heritage textile brand based in India.

Programme Details: Four fellowships, each with a grant of INR 5,50,000, will be awarded.

The programme is open to a wide range of people, from individuals to collectives, from researchers to practitioners. We’re hoping to receive applications on a range of subjects, and these include:

Histories of clothing and costume
Community or personal textile archives
Textiles in religious or liturgical contexts
Environmental impact of textile production and consumption
Endangered or disappearing textile traditions
Critical perspectives on revivalism
Labour in textile production, with a focus on caste, class, and gender
Textiles in relation to other cultural forms—storytelling, poetry, music, architecture, and material culture
Textiles in the context of archaeological study
Textiles as symbols or metaphors in literature or mythology
Techniques and tools used in specific textile traditions

You can read more about the Fellowships here. We will begin accepting applications starting August 18, 2025.

To register your interest and receive a reminder when applications open, please visit this link. For any queries, contact us at: fellowships@map-india.org

what caught our eye

business & tech

OpenAI is finally living up to its name by dropping two new, free-to-use open source models.
In today’s AI slop news, Grok generated Taylor Swift nude deepfakes through its ‘spicy’ video setting, without "even specifically asking the bot to take her clothes off."
Intel is struggling with key manufacturing processes for its next PC chip. Reuters has the exclusive.
Two former staff of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company have been arrested for allegedly stealing the chipmaker’s proprietary technology.

sports & entertainment

Mark Ruffalo will return as Hulk in the next Spider-Man film ‘Brand New Day’—out in July 2026.
The US’ agriculture department is using an intense scene between Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson from ‘Marriage Story’ in its fight to scare the growing wolf population in Yellowstone National Park.
Everyone’s fave Spider-Punk from 2023’s ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ is getting his own animated movie! British actor Daniel Kaluuya will be co-writing the movie and reprising his role as the titular character.
All eyes were on Lewis Hamilton this season because of his surprise move from Mercedes to Ferrari. However, his performance in the Hungarian Grand Prix has led to speculation about his future in F1.
The ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘House of Dragon’ star Matt Smith has been cast as a villain in Shawn Levy’s ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’.

health & environment

Associated Press details the ‘comeback’ of polio as a prevalent disease—caused by fake records, an imperfect vaccine and management missteps.
Long before its discovery in Ethiopia in the ninth century, betel nuts or paan was a local delicacy in Thailand during the Bronze Age 4,000 years ago.
In an amazing first, scientists have used dinosaur teeth as a powerful tool to reconstruct prehistoric air.
Martha Stewart is finally launching her own skincare brand—Elm Biosciences.
The Harvard Medical School has found that surgeons have higher risk of dying from cancer—specifically more than 2X that of nonsurgeon physicians and around 20% higher than most non-physician workers. The unexpectedly high cancer rates might be because of work-related risks.

meanwhile, in the world

Netanyahu continues to defy global calls for a ceasefire, retiterating that Israel must completely defeat Hamas in order to free the October 7 hostages. FYI: Israel will allow ‘gradual and controlled’ entry of goods into Gaza through local merchants.
Staffing gaps in Washington caused by Trump’s defunding and firing spree have complicated New Delhi’s bid to ease diplomatic tensions.
Ukraine has found Indian-made components in Russian drones used in frontline and civilian attacks, says top presidential aide Andriy Yermak.
Al Jazeera has a good read on how Bangladesh, a year after Hasina’s fall, is caught between hopes for democratic reform and growing political instability as power struggles stall progress.
Relatedly, Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus has announced that elections will be held in February 2026—two months earlier than planned—after mounting pressure from key political parties.
Politico has a must-read on the years of political deadlock Poland faces under its new nationalist president Karol Nawrocki.
The Donald is set to announce a new task force on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics—which could set him on another collision course with LA city officials. Hollywood Reporter has the exclusive.
An update on the 2023 OceanGate submersible implosion (see our Big Story)—the full report into the tragedy was released yesterday and concludes that CEO Stockton Rush was “a dangerous and deeply unpleasant boss.”
New York Times (splainer gift link) has a good read on how decades of planning failures turned a South Korean runway into a deadly trap—making the 2024 Jeju Air crash far worse than it should have been.

meanwhile, in India

Amid ongoing condemnation over India’s Russian oil imports, Trump has threatened to sharply hike tariffs on New Delhi within 24 hours—saying even a zero-tariff trade deal wouldn’t be enough. Admist this, India and Russia have reaffirmed plans to deepen defence ties.
OTOH, Indian-American Republican leader Nikki Haley has criticised Trump’s attacks, saying the US shouldn’t alienate a close ally while letting China—Russia’s top oil customer—off the hook with a 90-day tariff pause.
Former governor of four states, Satyapal Malik—known for openly criticising the Modi government in his later years—has died at the age of 79.

Two things to see

One: The Polymita tree snails might be the world’s most beautiful snails but they’re also an endangered species—slowly disappearing from the forests of Cuba. Now, biologists in Cuba and specialists at the University of Nottingham have teamed up to save six known species of Polymita.

Point to note: Though it is illegal to collect and trade these vibrantly coloured snails in Cuba, locals sell them internationally—likely to make ends meet. The most endangered of these species is Polymita sulphurosa—a lime green snail with blue flame patterns and bright orange and yellow bands across its shell. You can see it below. Times UK (paywalled) and BBC News have more on the conservation attempt.

Two: Fans of Brendan Fraser, rejoice! The Oscar-winning actor is playing an American man in Tokyo—hired by the Japanese Rental Family Agency to act as people’s family or friend. The film is titled ‘Rental Family’—and is helmed by Japanese director Hikari—of the 2020 movie ‘37 Seconds’ and 2023 comedy ‘Beef’ fame. The movie will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and then get a theatrical release on November 21. Watch its trailer below. (Variety)