http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/31/niger-migrants-found-dead-sahara-desert
(NIGER) Agadez
Mayor Rhissa Feltou
"The desert has always been a cemetery for immigrants, in silence and complete indifference. Travelers tell us they often find bodies - skeletons ravaged by the sands,” .
http://www.imap-migration.org/fileadmin/Editor/Visualisations/MTM/2006_New_Map-Poster_EN.pdf
Niger migrants died from thirst, after stranding in Sahara desert
Women and children who tried to cross desert on foot to reach Algeria suspected to have been trafficked Graves dug for stranded migrants in SaharaGraves are dug for the migrants who died in the Sahara in October. Of this migrants’ group 21 who survived reached the nearest town, Arlit, in Niger. Photograph: Almoustapha Alhacen/AP
Afua Hirsch , west Africa correspondent
The bodies of 92 people, almost all women and children, have been found in the Sahara desert. Rescuers said the people had died of thirst after their vehicle broke down during their attempt to reach Algeria from Niger.
An aid worker in Niger, a vast, landlocked country that straddles the desert between north and sub-Saharan Africa , told the Guardian that the scene was traumatic for the rescuers. They had discovered the bodies scattered in small groups around the desert.
"This is extremely difficult and the most horrible thing I have ever seen," said Almoustapha Alhacen, a rescuer who lives in Arlit, a uranium mining town 50 miles away. "These are women and children; they were abandoned and left to die. We found them scattered over a large area, in small groups. Some were lying under trees, others exposed to the sun. Sometimes we found a mother and her children. Some were children alone."
"They were left there for so long that their bodies are decomposed. Some of the bodies are still there."
The group was discovered after survivors reached Arlit on foot. Local experts said that the people were victims of human trafficking and were believed to have died two weeks ago as they tried to walk 12 miles in scorching sun to reach a well after the lorry they were travelling in broke down leaving them stranded.
Sources in Niger said that the group, who began their perilous journey across the desert in late September, was comprised of local people from Zinder, the second largest city in southern Niger , close to the border with Nigeria.
"We think that all these people are from the villages around Zinder," said Alhacen. "But until the investigation is finished, we cannot know all the details. It is very common for migrants to travel through this part of Niger. We have people from Nigeria and Burkina Faso, as well as people from Niger. They are trying to reach Libya and Algeria."
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One security expert stressed that the group were not economic migrants but victims of trafficking.
Moussa Akfar, a security expert based in Niamey, Niger's capital, said: "This was in fact a case of poor people and children who were being trafficked to Algeria. There is an inquiry underway but we know that this was trafficking because economic migrants go to Libya – in Libya you find people of all nationalities, from Nigeria, Cameroon and other countries, heading to Europe .
"In this case all the victims were Nigerien from Zinder, and they were being trafficked. The questions that have to be asked now is how officials on road checkpoints did not alert the authorities about this group. There is endemic corruption at work."
Details are still emerging about what happened to the group. The discovery of the 92 people – they were known to be 32 women and 48 children among them, reports said – comes after a further 35 bodies were found this week.
The two groups were believed to be of the same set of migrants who were travelling north aboard two lorries in an attempt to reach Algeria.
They died in October, only six miles from the border between Niger and Algeria, after one of their two vehicles broke down and left them stranded as it headed off looking for replacement parts.
Niger security sources told the local press that 21 had survived, including two who had walked across the desert to Arlit, the nearest town and site of a plant for the French nuclear company Areva.
A further 19 who continued on their journey to Algeria and reached the town of Tamaresset, in southern Algeria, were turned away and repatriated back to Niger, local press reported .
The route taken across Niger's desert, which often begins in the southern town of Zinder and then proceeds through desert to the town of Agadez, is a well-known traffickers' route for transportations to north Africa.
Beyond the Sahara some people then try to board boats to Europe, while others end up in Algeria seeking work.
"Zinder and Agadez, these are the main migrant routes, as well as human trafficking routes in Niger," said Johnson Bien-Aime from the children's development organisation Plan Niger. "We know that trafficking is happening every day in these areas, but unfortunately, until now, nothing has been done about it."
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been rocked by repeated food crises in recent years. Last year Save the Children termed Niger the worst place in the world to be a mother amid its warnings that continuing poverty levels were driving people to undertake life-threatening journeys to higher income nations.
While many in Niger said that the October deaths were linked to trafficking, Algeria being the intended destination, Rhissa Feltou, the mayor of Arlit, said the group could have been trying to reach Europe.
"They were probably heading to the Mediterranean to try to go to Europe, or else to Algeria to work," said Feltou.
Rescue workers who found the bodies said the group could have included a party from an Islamic madrasa school, given the large number of children and an elderly man among the victims who appeared to be an Islamic teacher.
The plight of migrants from Africa and the Middle East is increasingly under the spotlight after a series of tragedies in which large numbers have died trying to reach Europe, including the 365 who perished off the Italian island of Lampedusa on 3 October when their boat capsized .
Tens of thousands of west African migrants, many of whom have paid as much as $3,000 to be taken across the desert from Niger to north Africa, arrive in Europe by sea each year, according to the United Nations .
"Sadly this is a typical migration that has been going on over last number of years," said John Ging, from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "We estimate that 80,000 make that journey every year from the Sahara, and basically they are economic migrants so impoverished they have to make these hazardous journeys."
SenegalI study BARCELONA OR DIE
http://ftp.iza.org/dp7728.pdf
.......Interestingly, the vast majority of the sample (77%) of potential illegal
migrants reported that they are willing to risk their life in order to emigrate.
Accordingly, Figure 1 shows the distribution of their probabilities of death.
When we asked how likely they were to die if they tried to migrate ille-
gally to their preferred destination, potential illegal migrants reported that
they are willing to accept a 25% risk of death at the median, which is sub-
stantial. Furthermore, the distribution also reveals that 37.83% of potential
illegal migrants think that they have more than a 50% probability of death.......
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http://www.imap-migration.org/fileadmin/Editor/Visualisations/MTM/i-Map_poster_14.05_ENGLISCH_Screen_reduced.pdf
http://www.humantrafficking.org/publications/442
http://ftp.iza.org/dp7728.pdf Barcelona or die
http://www.arabnews.com/news/747321 EU to open Niger shelters to keep migrants out of Europe
GAMBIA
https://frontpageinternational.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/illegal-immigrants-more-gambians-determined-to-travel-to-europe-in-perilous-journeys/
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS:
More Gambians determined to travel to Europe in perilous journey
By Daniel Flynn
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4. Gambian migrants undeterred by horrors of Med crossings AFP
AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) - In a sandy compound in the Niger desert town of Agadez, a white-turbaned imam blesses a circle of African migrants, some of them little more than boys, to protect them on the journey across the Sahara toward Europe.
A smuggler then gives a signal and the migrants scramble onto a white Toyota Hilux, jostling for a place on the 1,200-km journey to Sabha in southern Libya – a route plagued by bandits and the pitiless desert sun .
Nineteen men pack into the truck for the three-day ride. Those on the edge sit astride a long wooden stick, to prevent them falling off during the night into the Sahara.
Some 2,000 migrant deaths in Mediterranean waters between the Libyan and Italian coasts this year have prompted alarmed European governments to tighten maritime patrols to stem an influx of migrants in boats from Libya, which has been in widespread chaos since rebels toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Yet the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warns that at least as many migrants may die during the long desert crossing from Niger, the main staging post for West Africans seeking to cross the Mediterranean.
Despite Niger's passage of a tough new law against people trafficking, some 100,000 migrants fleeing desperate poverty at home in hopes of a better life in Europe are expected to cross the West African state's borders this year. Many will pass through smugglers compounds known as "ghettos".
View gallery
Migrants sit in the back of a truck at a local immigration transit centre in the desert town of Agad …
“It’s a bit frightening but I have to deal with it because in life you have to be brave,” said migrant Fousseni Ismael, 16, wearing a blue headscarf to protect him from the sun as he waits to board a truck.
As night falls, the pickup rolls out of the metal gates of the compound and snakes through the sandy backstreets of Agadez, passing groups of Muslim men knelt in the evening prayer. It drives unhindered past a police checkpoint on the outskirts of town and into the blackness of the vast desert.
The risks are high. Mohamed, a driver, said he was attacked last week by Touareg bandits wielding AK-47 assault rifles who opened fire on his pickup when he refused to stop, wounding a migrant in the leg.
For protection, scores of trucks follow a military convoy that heads north each Monday toward the oasis town of Dirkou.
The death of 92 migrants from thirst -- mostly women and children -- when their vehicle broke down en route to Algeria, to Libya's west, in 2013 prompted Nigerien authorities to briefly crack down on the corridor -- but the lucrative trade quietly returned.
“The desert has always been a cemetery for immigrants, in silence and complete indifference. Travelers tell us they often find bodies - skeletons ravaged by the sands,” said Agadez Mayor Rhissa Feltou.
View gallery
A migrant holds a container of water wrapped with a wet sack as he sits at the back of a truck at a …
NOTHING WORKS BUT SMUGGLING
Smuggling has long been a way of life in Agadez, an ancient caravan town. The streets are full of cars stolen from Libya, whose borders are largely unsecured, and locals speak in hushed tones of drug convoys that traverse the desert.
This month’s law, approved under pressure from European Union donors, includes sentences of up to 30 years in prison for those profiting from migrants.
But with the collapse of foreign tourism due to the rise of armed Islamist groups in the Sahara, smugglers say there is nothing much else they can do to earn money.
The law has prompted smugglers in Agadez to hide their operations, but there is no sign of the migrant flow subsiding.
View gallery
Migrant Nassirou, 19, from Nigeria wears a turban to protect himself from dust and heat as he sits i …
“The ghettos? You cannot count them on the fingers of your hand. Everyone is doing it because it is the only thing that works,” said David Ousseni, 34, who runs the compound.
“We give people a place to rest before they leave. As soon as we have a full cargo of people, we call a driver,” he said.
People smuggling brings millions of dollars to Agadez. The 30 or so men leaving from Ousseni’s "ghetto" paid 150,000 CFA francs ($250) each to travel to Sabha.
Including food, lodging and bribes, migrants will spend some 250,000 CFA francs just to cross Niger, he said.
Lamine Bandaogo, a 17-year old from Burkina Faso, said police extorted money from migrants at checkpoints during the bus journey from Niger's capital Niamey to Agadez, demanding up to 10,000 CFA francs to let them pass.
Although West Africans have the right to travel freely in Niger, many migrants refuse to show their documents for fear they will be confiscated by police.
View gallery
Mayor of Agadez, Rhissa Feltou, poses for a picture in his office in Agadez, Niger May 23, 2015 . REU …
Bandaogo has seen migrants dying at sea on television, but would rather risk his life than face grinding poverty at home.
“We have seen that but what can we do? Everyone has their destiny. You don’t know where you are going to die,” he said.
SMUGGLING BREEDS CRIME
A 2013 police report seen by Reuters identified at least 70 ghettos in Agadez, many of them segregated by nationality for travelers from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana or Mali and operating with the complicity of local security forces.
Many of the ghettos lie in dirty backstreets, in squat houses behind red mud walls with no windows, only metal gates that occasionally offer glimpses of young men inside.
Some smugglers are themselves migrants who ran out of money and started working for a network to earn enough to continue their journey.
For those who reach Libya, conditions can be even worse. Migrants tell stories of being imprisoned by smugglers until their families back home transfer a ransom for their release.
“In Libya, you see it all. The smugglers demanded my friend to give them money, he refused and so they took out a pistol and shot him,” said Nfamara Diawara, 36, who is headed back to his native Senegal after failing to make enough money in Libya.
An IOM transit center in Agadez for returning migrants has received around a dozen people with broken limbs or with bullet wounds, according to its director, Maliki Hamidine.
Giuseppe Loprete, director of IOM's Niger branch, said smugglers sometimes inflict physical and sexual abuse on migrants and often abandon them to death in the desert if they cannot stump up more money to continue their journey.
Feltou, the mayor of Agadez, said people smuggling was fuelling crime and social problems including banditry, drug trafficking and prostitution in the town.
Amina, a 26-year-old from Nigeria, said she was working in Agadez as a prostitute until she could raise enough money to return home to start a business.
“If I ever go to Europe, I will fly,” said the mother of two, her hair in a net, as she sat in a courtyard in front of a low-slung, red mud-brick building. “I am afraid of the desert and of the water. Too many people die.”
(Additional reporting by Media Coulibaly and Akintunde Akinleye; Editing by Mark Heinrich
Received on Sat May 30 2015 - 11:25:24 EDT