http://www.trust.org/item/20150516043105-zdkju/?source=fiOtherNews2
Desert as deadly as sea for surge of Europe-bound migrants
Source: Sat, 16 May 2015 04:30 GMT
Author: Reuters
An African migrant climbs into a truck after being detained in
Zawiya, northern Libya June 1, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah
By Daniel Flynn
DAKAR, May 15 (Reuters) - At least as many migrants may be dying of
hunger and thirst in the Sahara as are drowning in the Mediterranean
during this year's huge surge of human trafficking from Libya to
Europe, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday.
The number of people travelling through Niger's vast desert wastes to
reach North Africa and Europe could more than double this year to
100,000, the global migration body's Niger office said. The migrants
are often abused by traffickers who abandon them to die in the desert
if they run out of money.
More than 170,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Italy last
year, and more than 3,000 drowned. With the numbers attempting the
crossing surging this year, the IOM expects the death toll will be
many times higher.
The issue raised particular alarm in Europe last month after more than
800 people were believed to have drowned in the shipwreck of a single
fishing boat, the worst disaster of its kind. Most of the victims were
locked below decks.
Smuggling rings have profited from lawlessness in Libya to ferry tens
of thousands of people to Europe in unsafe boats. The migrants are
first brought to Libya from across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle
East.
Niger's desert town of Agadez is one of the main transit points in the
Sahara for migrants leaving impoverished West African nations en route
for north Africa and then Europe.
“Libya is an open door,” said Giuseppe Loprete, IOM head of mission in
Niger. “In 2015, we estimate that 100,000 migrants will transit across
Niger, roughly double the figure last year.”
Loprete said there was little Niger could do to stop the flow of
migrants as many came from countries in the West African bloc ECOWAS -
such as Nigeria, Mali, Gambia and Senegal - which allows freedom of
movement between its 15 member states.
According to the latest IOM figures, an estimated 38,000 migrants
crossed into Italy between January and mid-May, with the largest
numbers coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Nigeria, followed by Gambia,
Syria, Senegal and Mali. The summer peak season for the sea crossing
has barely begun.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime estimates
migrant smuggling in Libya may be worth more than $300 million a year.
CAGES IN THE DESERT
"In the desert, there are a lot of problems,” said Adama Diaw, 30, a
Senegalese woman who migrated to Algeria in 2008 with her husband
hoping to reach Europe but is returning home without him.
“They lock people in cages, three or four people for days, until you
don’t know if they are dead. If they die, they just burn the bodies,”
she said at an IOM migrant centre in the Niger capital Niamey.
Smugglers sometimes imprison migrants and force their families to pay
for their release, Loprete said.
Migrants were obliged to pay not only the smugglers but also bribes to
security officials along the route.
“The moment they have no more money, they are left behind,” Loprete
said. “People are dying in the desert as well as at sea. In fact, I
would be surprised if it was not more than in the Mediterranean.”
Loprete said a recent IOM mission to the northern town of Dirkou had
rescued 85 migrants who said they were abandoned in the desert by
smugglers after they ran out of money. They had sheltered for two days
under bushes and in the sand hoping for someone to save them.
Niger promised a crackdown after 92 migrants died of hunger and thirst
in the desert in October 2013 after being abandoned by traffickers
taking them to Algeria. A Reuters investigation last year found that
smuggling continued with the tacit blessing of local officials. (Full
Story)
Young men waiting in Agadez and other desert towns were at risk of
recruitment by Islamist groups in the Sahara, Loprete said.
“To stop these migrant flows at the border would only generate more
problems,” he said, adding that the real issue was the lack of work in
their countries of origin. “We need to finance development programmes
at a community level so that there is not such an incentive to try to
migrate.”
Loprete said the IOM was also launching EU-funded programmes to
educate migrants about the risks of the trip and the difficulties of
life in Europe, using radio shows and getting former migrants to talk
to them.
“The smugglers tell them it is just 15 kilometres from Libya to the
Italian coast – but it is more like 300,” Loprete said.
(Additional reporting by Abdel-Kader Boubacar Mazou in Niamey; Editing
by Peter Graff)
((daniel.flynn_at_thomsonreuters.com; +221 33 864 5076; Reuters
Messaging: daniel.flynn.thomsonreuters.com_at_reuters.net))
Received on Sun May 17 2015 - 11:47:39 EDT