The Sahara desert: Another graveyard of migration

The irony is cruel. While nearly 400 North African migrants on their way to Europe drowned off the coast of Lampedusa earlier this month, 87 West African migrants died of thirst in the Sahara at the same time.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that over 1,000 West Africans die per year trying to cross the Sahara or reaching Europe by boat – or about 3 people per day.

The bodies of the most recently discovered victims of irregular migration were discovered in the northern Sahara desert on October 31.

The 87 people, mostly women and children, on their way from Arlit, Niger to the border of Algeria, were stranded when one of the two vehicles carrying them broke down en-route. The other left to look for spare parts, but never returned.

Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the day he found the bodies was the worst of his life.

Some of the bodies were decomposed, it was horrible,”

he said.

Sometimes we found a mother and her children; some of the bodies were children alone.”

Despite the tragedy, Niger security sources said 21 survived. Two walked 52 miles across the desert to Arlit while the 19 others reached the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset only to be sent back home – to what the United Nations labelled as the worst place to live on earth.

A land-locked Central African country, Niger is ravaged by periodic draught and desertification. In 2012, it was ranked 186th out of 186 countries on the United Nations’ Human Rights Development Index which rates life expectancy and economic prosperity.

This barren country drives tens of thousands desperate people across the desert in search of survival.

According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 80,000 migrants cross the Sahara desert through Niger every year. 30,000 passed through Agadez, Niger, between March and August of 2013 alone.

West African migrants pay upwards of $3,000 (£1,900) for their passage across the desert in a smuggling operation that walks a fine line between business profiteering and human trafficking.

Oxford University researcher Hein de Haas argued that most migrants are not trafficked by criminal rings but instead willingly immigrate, assisted by former nomad smugglers operating small networks.

In support of de Haas’ argument, a United Nations report stated that “on a whole, West African migrants are not escaping destitution.”

Research showed that a majority of migrants to North Africa had completed secondary education and some even had promises of salaried jobs at their destination. But in contrast, half of the surveyed migrants from North Africa to Europe had never been to school and were illiterate.

Whatever their educational past, the main reason migrants move is because of future economic prospects. For if there’s no hope for work or money in one’s home, then how voluntarily really is the move to somewhere that offers a better life, even though that life may be an illusion?

At least 4.5 million sub-Saharan migrants now live in North Africa, according to Hein’s study. Because they lack legal status, they’re subject to severe exploitation and abuse. Most work and live in overcrowded houses or improvised camps and many are denied access to legal assistance and schooling.

For the vast majority, though, North Africa is just a stop on the way to the ultimate destination: Europe.

According to Frontrex Annual Risk Assessment 2013, an estimated 10,380 people cross from North Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean every year, while Human Rights Watch puts the number at 35,000.

For many full boatloads, the first stop is the tiny rock island of Lampedusa off the coast of Italy – but some never make it there.

The Lampedusa boat tragedies in October that resulted in the deaths of almost 400 migrants shocked Europe and exposed the world to the perils of irregular migration.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called on the international community to protect migrants against such tragedies, but while the issue was discussed at the EU summit on October 25th, no action has yet been taken.

But the 87 bodies in the Sahara desert reveal that the Mediterranean Sea isn’t the only graveyard of African immigrants. They’re a sobering reminder of the horrific, and sometimes deadly, difficulties migrants must face on their journeys for survival.

Mallory Moench