Sixteen Deaths, One Explanation: Abuja’s Addis Ababa Warning Leaves the Hard Questions Unanswered

Nigeria’s foreign ministry blames high altitude for the deaths of 16 Nigerian travellers in Addis Ababa this year. Its advisory names no victims, gives no causes and says nothing about where they died — and it lands on a route that has long been one of Africa’s busiest corridors for drug couriers.

By Leeshan Kuratey | 14 November 2026

Nigeria’s Federal Government has warned citizens with pre-existing medical conditions to think carefully before routing journeys through Addis Ababa, after its diplomatic mission in the Ethiopian capital recorded the deaths of 16 Nigerian travellers in the city this year.

The advisory, issued on Saturday 14 November by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Oluwafemi Adeniyi, attributes the deaths to health complications “reportedly” associated with the city’s high altitude. It singles out travellers with cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, urging them to seek medical advice before booking itineraries through Bole International Airport, the hub of Ethiopian Airlines and Africa’s busiest transit point.

The ministry was careful to stress that the advisory is not a travel ban and is not intended to discourage Nigerians from travelling to or through Addis Ababa.

What the statement does not say

For an announcement of sixteen deaths, the advisory is remarkably thin. As published, it names none of the deceased and gives no ages, sexes or dates. It confirms no medical cause of death in any individual case. It does not say whether the travellers died airside at Bole, in transit hotels, in city hospitals or elsewhere, nor how long each had been in Ethiopia. It offers no figure for how many Nigerians passed through Addis Ababa this year — the denominator without which sixteen cannot be judged high or low. And no statement from the Ethiopian authorities or from Ethiopian Airlines has accompanied it.

The word “reportedly” carries much of the weight. On the face of its own statement, the ministry has not established that altitude killed anyone; it has relayed that the deaths were linked to it.

“Sixteen deaths. No names, no causes, no locations — and one convenient explanation.”

The altitude question

Addis Ababa sits at roughly 2,355 metres — about 7,700 feet — making it one of the highest capitals in the world, and altitude sickness is a recognised risk for visitors; the UK Foreign Office lists it among the health concerns for the city. For someone who spends several days there with an unmanaged heart or lung condition, the thinner air can matter.

For a passenger who never leaves the terminal, the case is far weaker. Aviation regulations require airliner cabins to be pressurised so that cabin altitude does not exceed 8,000 feet in normal operation. A traveller flying from Lagos to Addis Ababa has therefore already spent hours breathing air equivalent to — or thinner than — that of the city itself. A layover at Bole adds little strain that the flight did not.

That makes the place of each death the decisive fact, and it is the one fact the ministry has not disclosed.

A second factor may be who travels the route. Addis Ababa is, alongside Dubai, one of the two principal corridors for Nigerians travelling to India for medical treatment, and Ethiopian Airlines actively markets medical-travel packages with partner hospitals; it requires passengers holding medical visas to obtain a fit-to-fly certificate. A route that concentrates seriously ill travellers will record deaths whatever the altitude.

A route under scrutiny: drug couriers at Bole

There is a further context the advisory does not mention. Bole has for years been identified by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and by organised-crime researchers as a key transit point for cocaine moving from Brazil to Europe, Asia and the rest of Africa — and Nigerian networks have featured prominently in that traffic.

How many couriers have been caught there? No consolidated public figure exists. The numbers that are available come in fragments, from different agencies and different periods:

Ethiopia’s Federal Police said it arrested 80 suspected traffickers from 17 countries in the 2018/19 Ethiopian fiscal year, seizing more than 186 kg of cocaine, most of it moved through Bole.
Police arrested almost 100 suspected traffickers at the airport across 2019 and 2020, according to the Institute for Security Studies’ ENACT programme. A senior police investigator estimated that only around one in ten traffickers is caught.
A UNODC report found that 64 of roughly 156 outbound cocaine seizures recorded in Brazil were destined for, or due to transit, Ethiopia.
Ethiopian authorities said more than 80 kg of cocaine and 590 kg of other drugs were seized at Bole between July 2025 and March 2026. The Ethiopian Customs Commission has reportedly cited a 254 per cent rise in trafficking attempts over two years.
In Nigeria, NDLEA figures reported in 2024 showed that 11 of 36 drug suspects arrested at Nigerian airports in one review period held Ethiopian Airlines tickets — the joint-highest share, with Qatar Airways. The airline attributed this to its larger passenger volumes.

The human cost of that trade has included deaths in transit. In September 2019, two Nigerian men died en route from Lagos to Addis Ababa after cocaine pellets they had swallowed ruptured, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. In earlier cases, Ethiopian police reported that couriers arrested at Bole had died in Addis Ababa after ingested capsules burst.

There is no evidence that any of this year’s sixteen deaths were of this kind, and The Ethiopian Tribune does not suggest that they were. But that history is precisely why the causes of death matter. The rupture of ingested drug packages is a recognised cause of sudden death among air travellers; collapse or breathlessness is not, on its own, evidence of altitude sickness. A government that publicly attributes deaths to altitude should be able to say on what medical evidence it does so.

Nor is the question merely forensic. Nigerian officials have previously complained that the prominence of Nigerian couriers at Bole has led to the profiling and ill-treatment of innocent Nigerian transit passengers. Clear information about the sixteen deaths would serve those travellers too.

Two hundred and seventy in Ethiopian jails

The advisory also arrives at a sensitive moment in relations between the two capitals. According to Nigerian foreign ministry figures, more than 270 Nigerians have been serving prison sentences in Ethiopia, largely for drug offences, many of them at Kaliti and AbaSamuel prisons in Addis Ababa. Advocacy groups say many were transit passengers arrested at Bole.

Deaths in custody have repeatedly strained ties. Chizoba Favour Eze died at Kaliti in March 2023 following alleged assault by prison officers; Uchenna Nwanneneme died there later that year; Basil Ilobi Lawrence died in custody in 2025, and Dennis Smith Okoro in February 2026. In June, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, confirmed that four Nigerian inmates had died in custody, as the two governments signed a prisoner transfer agreement on 11 June. Some 136 prisoners have since been repatriated under it.

Whether any of the sixteen deaths recorded by the mission occurred in detention, or after arrest, the advisory does not say. Its language refers only to Nigerians “transiting” the city.

The questions that remain

Six questions remain unanswered:

Where did each of the sixteen die — airside, in a transit hotel, in hospital or elsewhere — and how long had each been in Ethiopia?
Who certified the causes of death, and were post-mortem examinations carried out?
How many of the deceased were travelling for medical treatment?
Does the figure include anyone who died in custody or following arrest?
How many Nigerians transited Addis Ababa in 2026, and how many deaths did the mission record in 2025?
Were the Ethiopian authorities or Ethiopian Airlines consulted, and do they accept the altitude explanation?

Until those answers are given, the advisory tells medically vulnerable travellers something useful — seek a doctor’s advice before you fly. It tells the public very little about how sixteen of their compatriots died.

— The Ethiopian Tribune