East Africa’s migration story is not just about Europe

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Migration from east Africa and the Horn of Africa is often portrayed as a journey towards Europe. International news reporting typifies it as the mass movement of people from Ethiopia, Eritrea or Somalia, transiting through Sudan, Libya and the Mediterranean to reach Europe.

But the truth is that people would rather move closer to home: within the region, Gulf states and southern Africa. Around 87% of the 8.5 million international migrants in east Africa and the Horn of Africa come from within the region. They move for work, family, education, trade, security and other reasons.

The perception that traffic mostly heads north comes from popular misconceptions – migration myths.

Narratives matter because they shape people's understanding of the world, and even government policies.

My research focuses on migration, return and reintegration as well as transnational migrant networks. In a recently published paper I explored contrasting and overlapping narratives shaping migration governance in the east and Horn of Africa.

To understand the narratives and their policy implications, I interviewed government officials, migration scholars, diplomats, international organisations, refugee-led organisations and migrant associations. I also examined previous research, policy documents and media content.

My findings highlight the differences between official narratives and actual experiences. European actors, UN agencies, international organisations and national governments have a role in shaping migration governance narratives. This has led to policies increasingly focused on border control, preventing irregular migration, combating trafficking and smuggling, and returning migrants.

Often overlooked in dominant migration narratives are the voices and lived experiences of migrants and their communities, whose complex realities are frequently reduced to statistics. This means their perspectives, agency and everyday experiences are largely unheard.

The stories about migration influence which problems governments prioritise, where money is spent and which forms of mobility are treated as legitimate.

The narratives driving policies

1. Direction of travel: One of the most persistent assumptions in migration policy is that east African countries are primarily places from which people leave. Yet the region is also a major destination for migrants and refugees. The UN Refugee Agency's 2026 data shows Uganda hosts about 2.05 million refugees and asylum-seekers, followed by Ethiopia with 1.02 million, Sudan with 910,000 and Kenya with 879,000.

This means migration is a regional system of mobility, in which people move in multiple directions and for multiple reasons. Policies built around a simple origin-transit-destination model can fail to capture what is often a process rather than a single journey.

2. Poverty as the root cause of migration: Another common narrative is that poverty and climate change are the main reasons people leave east Africa. They certainly matter. But the reality is more complicated.

People also migrate because of family and social networks, labour demand elsewhere, insecurity and political instability. They also go in hope of a better future or are driven by established cultures of migration. Somali, Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora communities, for example, can provide information and financial support to relatives and friends seeking to migrate.

The relationship between poverty and migration is not straightforward. Migration to Europe is more expensive than routes towards the Gulf or South Africa. The cost of travelling from Ethiopia to Europe through the northern route is estimated at around US$10,000. The southern route costs about US$4,800 and eastern routes to the Gulf cost about US$700.

People need resources and networks to migrate, particularly along expensive routes.

3. Smugglers drive illegal migration: Human smugglers and traffickers feature prominently in migration policy. East African and European governments all point to this as the main reason people migrate irregularly.

They talk of preventing exploitation, disrupting smuggling networks and managing irregular migration. This view has helped channel a disproportionate share of migration programming and interventions at the expense of other forms and destinations.

But this can obscure other factors. Interviews for my research indicate that limited livelihood opportunities and the absence of accessible legal migration pathways can encourage people to use irregular routes. In some communities, migration brokers are not perceived only as criminals. In parts of southern Ethiopia, for example, brokers have been described as “door openers” because they facilitate access to opportunities elsewhere.

This local perception should not be confused with an endorsement of smuggling. Migrants using these networks can face serious exploitation, abuse and deception. But it does help explain the persistence of smuggling.

4. Research reproduces the same imbalance: My review of the existing literature suggests that migration research in the region has paid relatively little attention to intra-African migration.

This can create a feedback loop. The issues that receive funding are researched. Those findings then inform policy. Policy creates new programmes around the same issues, generating more data and research.

The evidence base can become too focused on Europe-bound migration.

What's missing and what to do next

The migrants themselves often describe migration in terms of improving their own and their families' futures. But they, their families, local communities, civil society organisations, informal facilitators, subnational and local governments have little influence over policy.

Communities emphasise employment opportunities and the lack of viable livelihoods at home. Local authorities are more concerned with the immediate effects of migration on their communities. These perspectives are important because they reveal what can disappear when migration is discussed only at the national or international level.

The findings signal the need for change. Governments and international organisations need better data on movement within the continent. Policymakers – and researchers – should ask not only how many people are leaving, but where they are going, why they are moving, how long they stay and what happens when their plans change.

This could reorient policy focus on the movements that matter most to migrants themselves.

Policy initiatives should also shift to providing local opportunities for young people. They should aim to expand legal avenues for labour migration for both skilled and semi-skilled migrants. This should be paired with stronger oversight of recruitment agencies to prevent corruption, fraud and exploitation.

Cooperation between countries of origin, transit and destination should also go beyond border controls and the return of migrants. It should include protecting workers' rights, holding exploitative recruiters accountable and ensuring that migrants can seek help when things go wrong.

Finally, migration policy designed without the migrants' perspectives risks solving a problem that looks very different on paper from the one people experience in reality. Their experiences should inform migration policy and programmes.

Girmachew Adugna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Girmachew Adugna, Advisory Board Member, Research Center for Forced Displacement and Migration Studies, Addis Ababa University