Fleeing from Africa: new routes, same traffic
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Henry Casale
Arriving in Europe from Africa is no easy feat, nor economic . Migrants are forced to walk predetermined routes and to rely on human traffickers who have the means and knowledge to tackle extreme journeys to places like the Sahara Desert. The routes to the North are essentially three: the one from East Africa, along the Sudan and Libya, leading to the central Mediterranean (Lampedusa), one that crosses from West Africa to Morocco and Mauritania to get here from Spain; and that, along the Sudan, the door before in Egypt, in the Sinai and then, finally, in Israel.
The migrants who died off the coast of Lampedusa in the night of 3 October 11 October and then came from East Africa (Eritrea and Ethiopia). You most likely have climbed the first route. Released from Eritrea and Ethiopia have moved to South Sudan, here have relied on smugglers who brought them in Khartoum. In the Sudanese capital could count on the "logistics" of the local community Eritrean and Ethiopian. It is through these communities that migrants have found shelter and a job that allowed them to raise the money needed to face the stage to Libya. It is the hardest. The migrants, almost all boys and girls between 17 and 25 years, loaded onto pick-up packed. Many do not hold the strong fluctuations between night and day, and die in the desert. Their bodies are left on the edge of the slopes without being buried. Arrived in Libya, are being sold by traffickers Sudanese to their "colleagues" Libyans. At the time of the Gaddafi regime
traffickers sold migrants to the police. The police incarceravano them with the warning to leave the cell migrants. With these phones the kids could call home and ask them to send (via money transfer) money to pay the agents. The latter, after receiving enough money, rilasciavano them. Even in Libya Eritreans, Ethiopians, Somalis, sudsudanes could count on support of compatriots (often connived with the authorities). And it was precisely these basisti to procure the passage on a boat to the sea. This system is not changed. The only new element is that the police have been replaced by the militias that control the territory. Italy, signing a deal with Gaddafi, had tried to control this route entrusting its own control to the Libyan regime. Rome has renewed an agreement with Tripoli after the fall of Gaddafi.
The civil war in Libya and the instability that followed led migrants to seek new routes . It is thus that from East Africa, instead of heading towards the Mediterranean, Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese and Ethiopians but also have begun to hit the slopes that, going back through Sudan and Egypt, leading to Sinai and from there to Israel . The Sinai but it soon turned into a living hell. Here the Bedouins, who control the smuggling of weapons and foodstuffs into Gaza, they immediately sensed 's "deal". Instead of transporting migrants to Israel (which, among other things, he built an electronic barrier to contain the flows) often kidnap them and demand a ransom for families. Many Eritrean and Ethiopian communities in Europe are in debt in order to pay the huge sums required by the Bedouins. Unverified sources also speak of organ harvesting immigrants that feed a trafficked into the Arabian Peninsula. The women are often raped. The men
tortured. The police and the Egyptian armed forces have failed to stop the violence and because it relied on in major cities to maintain public order during the uprisings of the Arab Spring, and because the Camp David agreements to prevent Cairo to send reinforcements to the troops already present in the peninsula.
The third route is used by migrants in West Africa . This, in turn, is divided into two: one is goes to Morocco and the other joins in Libya that coming from East Africa. In both the trafficking of human beings is mixed with drug trafficking (which comes from Latin America on the west coast of Africa and then on to Europe) and cigarettes. Sources tell of trucks crammed with cigarettes, bricks of cocaine and people crossing the desert to reach the Mediterranean. Even in this case, the migrants pay thousands of dollars to be transported and subjected to violence unheard by passeurs.
Migration, however, not only are directed towards the North . For years now, many migrants returned to South Africa, the most developed country in southern Africa. In South African townships, neighborhoods that were once used to blacks in South Africa, have settled communities from the United Africa's most unstable subsharaiana: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Somalia. It is a journey no less complex than the North. The Somalis confront him with makeshift through Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique. Other times, like in the Mediterranean, they embark on "ships of shame". Many of these do not hold up the trip and sunk in the Mozambique Channel. Not less tragic, although shorter, that of Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. Once there awaits a future of violence. South African blacks in the townships see them as "dangerous competitors" in the hunt for a job.They take so harsh reprisals, similar to pogroms. As it was in 2008 that made hundreds of deaths
among immigrants.
Henry Casale , journalist Peoples(Software translation)
- See more at:
http://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/fuga-dallafrica-nuove-rotte-stessi-traffici-9257
Received on Tue Oct 22 2013 - 12:18:58 EDT