["International Migration, Volume 64, Issue 4, July 2026. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis study examines the experiences of transit or half‐way returnees along Ethiopia's eastern migration corridor—migrants who return from transit countries without reaching their intended destinations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with returnees from transit countries and Saudi Arabia, as well as key stakeholders, the study explores how migration trajectories shape return experiences and reintegration outcomes. The findings challenge linear understandings of return migration by demonstrating that return often occurs at different stages of the migration process due to deportation, border controls, insecurity or personal circumstances. Transit countries often become unintended destinations where migrants experience detention, exploitation, violence and economic hardship, resulting in interrupted migration projects and unplanned returns. The study contributes to return migration scholarships by showing how transit and half‐way returnees complicate existing typologies that link return motivations to the completion of migration projects. Return is better understood as part of a cyclical and ongoing migration process rather than a discrete departure–arrival–return sequence. Reintegration outcomes are shaped not only by economic conditions but also by social perceptions of migration success. Returnees who come back without achieving their migration goals often face stigma, debt and limited acceptance within their families and communities, while women and young returnees encounter heightened vulnerabilities. The findings further reveal tensions between returnees' aspirations for urban settlement and reintegration programmes focused on places of origin. Community‐driven rescue initiatives for stranded migrants illustrate strong collective responsibility but also raise ethical concerns, including the potential reinforcement of trafficking networks and the unintended encouragement of further migration. The article argues for a more dynamic understanding of return that recognises the spatial, temporal and social complexities of migration trajectories and reintegration processes.\n"]