Sub-Saharan Migration to the Maghreb:

1.1 Destinations:
1

UNHCR:
sub-Saharan Africans are increasingly migrating to Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and
Morocco, often using the region as a point of transit to Europe and others
remaining in the Maghreb region.
Since late 1990s, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia started witnessing an increase in
migration from an increasingly diverse array of sub-Saharan countries.
European destination countries include Southern Spain and Canary Islands,
Greece and Italy.

2.1 Origins:

UNHCR:
Despite the multitude of trans-Saharan routes exists; at least until recently, the
majority of overland migrants entered the Maghreb from Agadez in Niger.

1 H Hass, Irregular Migration from West Africa to the Maghreb and the European
Union, IOM International Organization for Geneva, May 2008 , viewed in June 2015 ,
http://www.unhcr.org/49e479ca0.pdf,

From Tamanrasset in Algeria, migrants move to the northern cities or enter

Morocco via the border near Oujda
Migrants began crossing the Mediterranean Sea from more eastern places on
the Moroccan coast or Algeria to mainland Spain, from Tunisian coast to the
Italian islands and from Libya to Italy and Malta.
West Africans popularly from the countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Cape Verde, Chad, Cote dIvoire, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.
3.1 Motives for migration:
UNHCR:
state that swelling masses of desperate Africans fleeing poverty and war at
home is a motive behind the migration.
o The progressive change in Libyas foreign policy contributed to a major
surge in trans-Saharan migration to Libya. e.g. the 1992-2000 UN
embargo prompted Libya to intensify its relations with sub-Saharan
countries. Due to these pan-African policies, Libya started to welcome
sub-Saharan Africans to work in Libya.
Growing instability
Civil Wars e.g. outbreak of civil war in 1999
The associated economic decline in several parts of West and Central Africa
Xenophobia in Cte dIvoire
Migration to Libya continued because of the persistent need for immigrant
labour, although this migration has become increasingly irregular as a
consequence of its restrictive immigration regime.
sub-Saharan migrants attempt to cross to Europe directly from the Libyan coast,
transforming Libya from a destination country into a destination and transit
country.
UN2:
Most people who seek to migrate are pushed by circumstances in their home
countries. War, poverty and persecution prompt people to become refugees,
asylum seekers and labour migrants.
Usually, they are fleeing from an emigrant producing country whose jobs are
scarce or salaries are too low, obliging people to seek opportunities elsewhere
4.1 Migration Routes and Migration Methods modus operandi of migrating:

UNHCR:
Migrants use numerous land, sea, and air routes to reach their desired
destinations
From Oujda in Morocco, migrants either try to enter the EU by crossing the sea
from the north coast or entering the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta or Melilla or
move to Rabat and Casablanca.

2 G Mutume, African migration: from tensions to solutions , Africa Renewal, January

2006 , viewed in June 2015 , http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january2006/african-migration-tensions-solutions

Since 2001, migrants in Morocco have increasingly moved southwards to the

Western Sahara in order to get to the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory in the
Atlantic Ocean.
Due to recent increases in border controls and internal policing in the
Mediterranean and North Africa, migrants are avoiding the trans-Saharan
crossing to the Maghreb although by sailing directly from the Mauritanian, Cape
Verdean, Senegalese, and other West African coasts to the Canary Islands on
traditional wooden fishing canoes.
In the process of crossing the Sahara to North Africa, migrants spend hundreds
of dollars on bribes, smugglers, transportation, and daily necessities.
Despite media focus on the boat people many (North and sub-Saharan)
African migrants use other methods tourist visas, false documents, hiding in
vessels with or without the consent of the crew, scaling the fences surrounding
the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla or attempting to swim around them.

UNODC:
The existence of stage-to-stage smuggling organizations allows those travelling
from sub or trans-Saharan countries to arrive at key departure points, i.e. those
in Libya, who then carry out the route to Sicily.
The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya became the hub for migrant smuggling by sea in
North Africa when smugglers who had been operating in other countries such as
Egypt, Morocco or the Sudan extended their operations to the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya.
The full-package migration trip to Italy is said to cost 3,000, which is requested
in two payments. The first is needed to be paid to the Libyan organizers at the
moment of departure, a sum of 1,500, with the remaining 1,500 to be paid by
relatives once it has been determined that the trip was successful.
According to the survey conducted in Morocco in 2007, travel is usually very
long: 83.7 per cent of migrants interviewed crossed through more than one
country and 21 per cent of them passed through four to six different countries.
From countries like Abidjan, Accra, Cotonou, Lagos and Lom it is not difficult to
arrange long-distance travel in minibus to Gao (in Mali) or Agadez (in the Niger).
Prices vary enormously, and the cost of a passage from Lagos to Gao can be as
high as $1,000, including all expenses and the fees paid by drivers to local
police officials as bribes.
The second step: desert crossing which is very difficult and dangerous. Here
almost all migrants have to establish contact with middlemen so as to continue
the journey and travel with drivers who know the routes and are able to avoid
detection.
The choice of routes is not easy. According to information collected by Issa
(2007), in Agadez, for example, 11 travel organizers operate illegally to reach
the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Sebha) or Algeria (Tamanrasset), in close
collaboration with 12 agencies.
Well established smuggling routes include:
Agadez Arlit Assamakka I-n-Guezzam Tamanrasset (a national route
and the least risky.
Agadez Arlit I-n-Guezzam Tamanrasset (a route which avoids police
checkpoints but is more dangerous).

Agadez Arlit Tchingalen Adrar Bous (Montagne) Tchibarakaten Well

(on this route, Libyan and Algerian smugglers buy passengers) Janet
(Algeria) or Ghat (the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya).
Agadez the Tree of Tnr (Wells of Hope) Ashagour (Artesian Wells)
Dirkou Siguidine (the only village where one meets civilians) Dao Timi
Madama Tuomo Gatrone Oubari- Sabaha (This is a dangerous route,
after Siguidine, the risk of perishing or being abandoned by the driver is
over 80 per cent. )

Global Initiative:
Ad hoc smuggling services: The migrant travels on his or her own, occasionally
using smuggling services for example, to cross a border.
Migrant smuggling through misuse or abuse of documents: Migrants who can
afford to use this type of smuggling often have sufficient finanacial resources to
purchase visas and other necessary papers.
Pre-organized stage-to- stage smuggling: The whole journey is organised and
migrants are accompanied for most of it by smugglers.
Libya has gradually become the major North African hub for migrant smuggling
by sea to Europe. Under Qaddafis rule, the country was an intermittently hostile
environment for illegal migration, with Qaddafi maintaining tight control on
migrant smuggling along the Northern border to prevent passage to Europe.
After the fall of Qaddafis regime, the extent to which Libya has become a hub
for migrant smuggling cannot be overstated.
Many smugglers also make unrealistic promises to migrants about the kind of
lives that they may be able to have abroad.
Testimony: Osas, from Benin, recounts, For the first parts of the journey I did
some on foot, some by motor cycle and by bus, paying about 300 dollars.
Arriving in Libya after around 10 days, without any more money, he worked as a
builder for almost a year before he was able to pay US$800 to the smugglers to
make the sea crossing to Italy.
Costs depends on several factors including: the distance and difficulty of the
route; the level of institutional control over the route; and the transit and
destination countries response to the migrants arrival.
According to GI, three main smuggling routes characterize the irregular
migration to Italy and beyond.
1. Western route, for which the main source countries are Mali, the Gambia
and Senegal. often connects in the Sahel with the
2. Central Route for which the source countries are Nigeria, Ghana and Niger
3. Eastern route, which sources from Somalia, Eritrea and Darfur in South
Sudan, whose routes tend to cut north through Sudan and Egypt and then
along the northern coast of Africa.
Migrations from West Africa- Global Initiative:
West Africa is a strategic gateway to North Africa and Europe due to unequal
distribution of resources and opportunities, the effects of climate change and
environmental degradation.
Mali and Nigeria continue to experience rising numbers of migrants despite the
decrease West Africa migration to Europe in 2013.

3 The Global Initiative, Smuggled Futures: The dangerous path of the migrant from
Africa to Europe, May 2014, viewed in June 2015,
http://www.globalinitiative.net/download/global-initiative/Global%20Initiative%20%20Migration%20from%20Africa%20to%20Europe%20-%20May%202014.pdf

Main hurdle of both West and Central Africans comes at the crossing into North
Africa, where they are most vulnerable to the authorities and exploitation.
Malian nationals are able to use Malian passports or false Malian papers to enter
Algeria, as they do not need a visa. From there, irregular migrants cross into
Tunisia or Libya before beginning their maritime journey across the
Mediterranean.
Transportation is largely via trucks, buses and lorries that are in poor condition
Local ethnic groups, i.e. Taured, are involved in migrant smuggling to Europe via
Sahel routes.
There are at least 70 known migrant way-stations and transit houses in the
Agadez trail, 18 of which are located in the town of Agadez itself. Some areas
with high concentrations of these transit houses are often described as
ghettos, and are reported to house as many as 500 migrants at any given
time.
In Oct. 2013, the bodies of 92 migrants, the majority of which were children,
were found in the desert of the Agadez region after the two trucks smuggling
them north over the Algerian border broke down.
Investigations following discovery revealed that at leaset 3,000 migrants travel
through the Agadez region (either towards Algeria via Arlit, or Libya via Dirkou)
per week.
Migrations from Central Africa- Global Initiative:
Nigerians have become prominent among sub-Saharan African asylum seekers
in Europe.
There are a number of direct full-package routes to Europe which cost
between $10-40,000 and often come with (false) promises of employment in
London, Italy and another European capital.
A documented characteristic of Nigerian migration is criminal groups trafficking
young women into the sex trade through promises of migration.
Burkina Faso, while arguably more stable than its neighbours, is the
quintessential transit state. The extreme porousness of Burkina Fasos borders
in underlined by the fact that only 19 border stations exist, managing the
movements between Burkina and its six neighbours.
The border stations, with only about 300 border officials for the entire country,
are severely under-equipped and manned, given the scale of travellers and
goods that pass through on a daily basis.
Estimated that around 2,000 people cross the border with Mali at Koloko every
day and another 600-800 at Faramana, while an estimated 1,000 travelers,
most transiting to or from Ghana, cross to Niger at Kantchari each day.
Migrations from Eastern Africa Global Initiative:
Mainly used by migrants from the Horn of Africa: the routes depart from Eritrea,
Ethiopia and Somalia and usually pass through the Sudan, Egypt and then Libya
and eventually to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Gino Barsella, head of the Italian Centre for Refugees in North Africa, says,
They come mainly as asylum-seekers (Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Somalis).
They enter Sudan, where often they obtain the status of refugees from the
ACNUR; knowing that they then have to wait too long to be able to hope for
resettlement in a country which guarantees international protection, they put
themselves into the hands of the traffickers in the Omdurman marker (northeast of the capital Khartoum) and leave for Kufra (Libya) from where they
continue to Tripoli and then by sea to Lampedusa.

Migrants from Eritrea and Ethiopia usually pay a few hundred dollars to
Sudanese middlemen for travel across the Sudan, using the border area of Al
Awaynat to enter Egypt.
After a 10-day journey, they are in Libya. Egyptians do not need visas to enter
Libya, and are therefore able to access Europe for a single payment made in
their home country as arranged by an intermediary.

5.1 The dangers of Migration:

UNODC:

The only tool they have at their disposal is a compass and sometimes a global
positioning system (GPS).
The boats sail without a flag, a names or any sort of documentation, and the
owners of the boats remained unidentified, which prevents them from ever
being investigated.
The smugglers rely on the fact that migrants will be intercepted, and rescued,
by the authorities of European countries. Their strategy is to send several boats
at the same time, so that the reception infrastructures are overcrowded and the
migrants are moved immediately to the mainland.
Global Initiative:
Migrants are especially vulnerable to mistreatment ad abuse throughout many
points along their journey. If caught and arrested, they may be detained for
months, and unless they can afford a ticket home, they have little hope of
release.
Even if they do reach the Italian shores, migrants have to endure long,
strenuous processing procedures and face deportation if they are not found to
be a genuine refugee.
The IOM reports that many migrants leave on their own, without telling their
families, yet with the intention of getting in touch with them after their
success is ensures.
Therefore, without the social support system, such individuals are prime
candidates for exploitation and recruitment into organised criminal groups.
In addition to exploitation by smugglers, survivors offer terrible stories of
setbacks, long wait without shelter, period of hunger and thirst and dangerous
border crossing at night.
For many, the trip takes much longer and is more expensive than expected,
taking weeks of even years to complete.

5.2 Risk of Human Trafficking:

Migrants are frequently subject to human trafficking, thus traffickers are able to
take advantage of their vulnerable state, often exploiting them into the sex
trade of debt bondage.
Exploitation in human trafficking may include sexual exploitation, forced labour
services, and debt bondage and is considered a human rights violation.
5.3 Exploitation as a result of armed conflict:
Political instability in the Horn of Africa has left thousands of refugees vulnerable
to kidnapping and trafficking by smugglers.
The UNHRC in Sudan has acknowledged the growing problem of abduction of
refugees, mainly Eritreans from Eastern Sudan refugee camps.
There has been a dramatic increase of East Africans, particularly from Eritrea,
making their way towards European countries by force.
5.3 Exploitation as a result of sex trafficking:
In global terms, the human trafficking industry produces an estimated 25.91
billion USD and the UN reports that 52.5% of known trafficked victims suffer
sexual exploitation.
Women who are recruited for the sex trade in North Africa usually become
trafficking victims during the course of their migration.

Smugglers may force migrants to have sex with police or other law enforcement
officials, as a form of payment for turning a blind eye to let them pass.
Traffickers may take advantage of desperate female migrants who run out of
money during the course of their journey, offering to help them in return for
sexual favours.
In result, female migrants making their way to Italy ultimately become victims
of sex trafficking, being forced into prostitution to pay their smugglers- turnertraffickers.
Reports estimate there are as many as 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes.
Many of these women do not have a clear idea of the amount of money they
owe for their assistance during the journey, nor do they know the horrifying
conditions they will have to work in.
As a method of domination over these women, traffickers may take their
passports and phones away from them once they arrive in Europe, in order to
prevent them from seeking help.
While a woman may have started a trip voluntarily, these elements transform
her into a victim of human trafficking.
5.4 Exploitation as a Result of Forced Labour:
Debt bondage may be imposed as an individual attempts to work off a debt
incurred, including the costs associated with food and shelter, and happens
most often when migrants reach certain hubs along their way to Europe.
Even when trafficked individual has paid off his or hers debt, the employer will
still use threats and force to compel the individual to continue working in a state
of slave labour until the individual is either incapable of working or, in many
cases, dead.
5.5 Exploitation and Extortion:
Particularly in the case of Libya, there is evidence towards imprisoning migrants,
which becomes a ready source of income for militia groups through extortion.
Interviews with migrants suggest arbitrary round-ups of foreigners ( in
particular, West Africans) on the streets, results in contacts being made with
families for payment for their release.
Investigations into the extortion business related to migrancy suggest it is most
likely to occur in places where there is little government control over migrant
centres and little international oversight.
Extortion business is widely reported to have been associated with the detention
centre for migrants in Benghazi and Libya.
Migrants, and foreigners who have settles in Libyan cities, are vulnerable to
extortion in the absence of working institutions and the rule of law, especially in
a contact where increasingly criminalized militia groups are in control.
6.1 EUs position concerning the migration:
UNHCR:
Europes increasingly restrictive immigration policies and intensified migration
controls have led to a growing reliance on overland routes, although migrants
who can afford it make at least part of the journey to North Africa by airplane.
In response to increased methods of migration (tourist visas, false documents,
hiding in vessels with or without the consent of the crew, scaling the fences
surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla or attempting to swim

around them.) there have been increased restrictions in North Africa, border and
police officials tend to charge higher bribes, and migrants increasingly use
secondary, i.e. more dangerous routes through the desert.
Refugees backgrounds K additions:
There are no comprehensive political agreements on how to respond to the
needs of growing number of refugees. In Europe, there is a strong disagreement
over responsibility for refugee flows.
In the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees entails that
countries shall not expel or return refugees where their life or freedom is
threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group of political opinion. This principle or non-refoulement is
generally considered as part of customary international law thus binding all
countries. (Despite this, some countries contribute to violate the rule of nonrefoulement by returning refugees to countries where life is threatened i.e China
has maintained policy of repatriate North Korean refugees).
The European Commission unveiled concrete proposals on May 27th 2015 for a
new European Agenda on Migration. This Agenda aims to ensure Member
States Fair and balanced participation in receiving refugees and replace and
update principles established in the 2003 Dublin II Regulation. Proposals in the
Agenda included a relocation of 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece to other
EU countries as well as resettlement of 20,000 refugees from outside the EU by
Member States over two years, distributing individuals across Europe depending
on factors including country size and economic output.
UN:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan states that We cannot ignore the real policy
difficulties posed by migrationBut neither should we lose sight of its immense
potential to benefit migrants, the countries they leave and those to which they
migrate
But there are limits to the number of migrants they can take, for a number of
reasons, including rishi national unemployment e.g. in France and Italy, the rate
of underutilized labour reached 21% in 2004, up from 17 per cent in 1994. As a
result, more receiving countries are becoming more selective about the
migrants they are willing to take in, opting mainly for those with skills or capital
to invest.
Developing countries are demanding more open policies. They view migration
as offering an opportunity to reduce the ranks of the unemployed, earn revenue
through the remittance of workers earnings and import skills, knowledge and
technology via returning residents. Mean whilst, they are also concerned of the
brain drain.
Globalization has far not led to the creation of sufficient and sustainable decent
work opportunities around the world, says ILO Director-General Juan Somavia.
He also states better jobs and income for the worlds workers has not been a
priority in policy- making.
Somavia also says that We dont need more diagnosing or one-size-first-all
solutions, Its time for the international financial institutions, the entire UN
system and bilateral cooperation, to focus energies on job creation in Africa,
which we know is so fundamental to peace, security and unity.
Former French President Jacques Chirac, told the France-Africa Summit in Mali,
2007 said Together, Africans and Europeans, we have a duty to dismantle the
illegal immigration networks, behind which hides an appalling and mafia-like

traffic. Together, we must encourage co-development and enable Africans to

enjoy decent conditions for living and working in their own countries.
7.1 Attitudes towards immigrants:

Due to previous fundamental terrorist groups actions against citizens, i.e.

9\11, Charlie Hebdo, Boko Haram. As a result of these events, Western
countries tend to associate Muslim immigrants or in some cases, any
immigrants from Africa, as murderers, therefore developing a level of
hostility towards the new comers.
According to a recent article from the 4Telegraph concerning immigrants
coming from Mali, Ivory Coast and Senegal mentions, Conservative
politicians accused the centre-Left government of Matteo Renzi of allowing
fundamentalists into Italy and called for a blockade of the refugee boats.
5

PEW:
State that there is a humanitarian crisis developing in Europe as
refugees traveling through Libya and other counties seek to enter the
European Union via the Mediterranean Sea.
Two surveys taken in 2014 show that Europeans, especially Greeks and
Italians and others in the continents south, hold negative views of
immigrants and are concerned about new arrivals from outside the EU.
Greeks and Italians see immigrants as a burden on society because they
take jobs and social benefits. However people in the UK and Germany are
more likely to say that immigrants make their country stronger because of
their hard work and talents.
6

FTP ISL:
In this report, they state that the EU recognizes that culture and
diversity are vital elements to its countries economies and
competitiveness and its international relations with third countries.
80 per cent of rising anti-foreigner feeling is related to behavioural
changes among the population. These attitudes are powerfully associated
with a cultural threat and perceptions about identity; it is differences in
cultural values and beliefs rather than fear of labour market competition
and economic well-being that provide the link between education and
attitudes towards immigrants.

4 N Squires, Italy accused of bringing in Islamist terrorists after Christians thrown

into sea, Telegraph, 16 Apr 2015, viewed in June 2015,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11542320/Italy-accused-ofbringing-in-Islamist-terrorists-after-Christians-thrown-into-sea.html
5 J Poushter, Refugees stream into Europe, where they are not welcomed with open
arms, Pew Research Center, 24 Apr 2015, viewed in June 2015,
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/24/refugees-stream-into-europe-wherethey-are-not-welcomed-with-open-arms/
6 A. Constant, M Kahanec, K.F Zimmerman, Attitudes towards Immigrants, Other
Interegation Barriers, and Their Veracity, Institute for the Study of Labor, August 2008,
viewed in June 2015, http://ftp.iza.org/dp3650.pdf