Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has disclosed that more than 1,700 young Africans perished while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2025, urging African leaders to urgently create economic opportunities at home to reverse the deadly migration trend.
Speaking at a continental forum, Ablakwa cited data from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), noting that even as migration numbers declined by approximately 25 percent, the human cost remained unacceptable.
“These young Africans are not just statistics; they are people searching for opportunity,” he said.
The minister acknowledged progress in expanding economic prospects across the continent but was direct in his assessment: Africa’s leaders must admit the mission is not yet accomplished. He argued that limited access to jobs, skills training and economic mobility continues to push young Africans toward fatal migration routes in search of better livelihoods.
Ablakwa referenced a personal encounter with a young man named Ousmane, whom he described as ambitious and hardworking, using the encounter to question why such potential cannot be fully realised within Africa itself.
The minister underscored the continent’s latent strengths, noting that Africa holds 30 percent of the world’s mineral resources and 60 percent of global arable land, with a youthful population projected to constitute a significant share of the global workforce by 2050. Despite this endowment, he said a persistent gap remains between Africa’s potential and its lived reality.
He called for deliberate policy action centred on job creation, skills development and economic transformation, and urged African leaders to respond to global shifts driven by technological innovation, evolving financial systems and changing geopolitical dynamics that are reshaping trade and capital flows.
Ablakwa said the path forward requires stronger regional integration, more resilient financial systems and an aggressive push to attract investment that builds sustainable opportunities for the continent’s youth.
