Two years ago, the offices of the Association of Overseas Migration Agencies in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa was a hub of vibrant activity.
These days, the office compound is empty, save for the Association's general manager Solomon Melessia and his secretary.
If anything, he estimates that the number of Ethiopians now using illegal means to reach Europe and the Middle East in search of work has eclipsed the numbers that used to leave legally, despite the dangers of a journey that has killed over 3,000 people so far this year.
The European Union and the African Union met in the Mediterranean island state of Malta this week to address those very issues in a two-day conference convened in response to the rapidly growing numbers of African and Middle Eastern migrants attempting to reach European shores.
Yet the number of economic migrants has swelled along with the number of clearer political refugees, overwhelming Europe's ability to process and house the new arrivals.
But development programs and stronger policing alone are unlikely to stem the flow of hopeful migrants to Europe's shores, says Mohamed Yahya, the Addis Ababa-based director of the United Nation's Development Program in Africa .
