{"id":838341,"date":"2026-10-28T02:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=838341"},"modified":"2026-10-27T14:06:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T18:06:39","slug":"djibouti-says-gendarmes-detained-224-people-in-dawn-raids-and-took-them-back-to-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/838341","title":{"rendered":"Djibouti says gendarmes detained 224 people in dawn raids and took them back to the border"},"content":{"rendered":"

Djibouti's gendarmerie detained 224 people it said were in the country irregularly in dawn raids in the capital on Saturday and took them back to the border, the state news agency ADI said.<\/p>\n

The operation began at 6 AM in Ambouli and Djebel, ADI reported on Monday. Officers of the judicial unit of the National Gendarmerie, backed by the Mobile Gendarmerie, moved into the two areas early in the morning and targeted houses that had been identified in advance as places where people without legal status had been staying, the agency said. Ambouli, which gives its name to the international airport, and Djebel are both inside the capital. ADI's report was accompanied by photographs showing gendarmes standing with detained women, whose faces were blurred.<\/p>\n

Those detained first received humanitarian assistance and were then driven back to the border in gendarmerie vehicles, according to ADI. The agency did not give the nationalities of the 224 people, did not say which border they were taken to, and did not say whether any of them were children.<\/p>\n

Djibouti sits on the Eastern Route, which carries migrants, most of them Ethiopians, across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and on toward Saudi Arabia. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded about 56,100 migrant arrivals in Yemen from the Horn of Africa in the first three months of 2026. Between July 1 and September 30, about 41,560 migrants crossed the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and 36,925 Ethiopians and Somalis arrived in Yemen, the East African Centre for Forced Migration and Development wrote on X on Monday. It said a further 3,793 migrants arrived in Djibouti between September 10 and 28.<\/p>\n

The route remains deadly. At least 139 people, including children, died on October 9 when a boat carrying about 305 migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the IOM said, and 84 others were missing.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the IGAD health and social development division said on X that it "reaffirmed its commitment" to regional cooperation on migration governance and safe, regular and orderly migration at a Migration Day event in Djibouti City.<\/p>\n

It was not the first such operation this month. Commenting on October 23 on a video the authorities released of an earlier gendarmerie operation, Alexis Mohamed, a former adviser to Djibouti's president who calls himself a political figure, called it "an almost theatrical operation" meant to make people believe that the authorities control illegal immigration, and argued the state should do more to secure its borders.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h4>\n