The migration route that crosses the Sahara Desert towards the Mediterranean has been reactivated in the last three years following restrictions on border crossings due to Covid-19 and the intensification of conflicts in Africa, especially in the Sahel and Sudan. It is hell on earth: migrants and potential asylum seekers suffer daily torture, kidnappings, murders and rapes by the armed groups and traffickers that control this route, as revealed in an exhaustive report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MCC) published this Friday.
“We see three elements clearly,” says Xavier Creach, UNHCR’s coordinator for the Sahel. “Firstly, conflicts that are escalating, such as in Burkina Faso or Sudan, and which are leading to more and more forced displacement. Secondly, countries in the region that offer hospitality and refuge to those fleeing, such as Mali, Mauritania or Chad. It is not true that everyone is going to Europe, many want to stay close to home. But finally, we see a lack of international funding to help these countries welcome refugees. That is why some take the risk of going to North Africa, they have no choice,” he explains. Of the 410 million euros that UNHCR needs for its programmes in the Sahel in 2024, only 24% had been covered by 30 June.
The study estimates that around 15,000 people have died since 2020 while crossing the Sahel desert.
In the report entitled On this trip nobody cares if you live or diewhich is based on interviews with some 31,000 migrants and refugees of 59 nationalities between 2020 and 2023, the three organisations note that the dangers of crossing the desert have worsened in recent years. Abraham, one of them, spent three days without water riding in the back of a pickup truck with 30 other people, eight of them women. There were wells along the way, but they were full of corpses that contaminated them. He came across a crashed truck carrying another 20 or 30 people. All dead. They did not stop. “You just keep going, you never look back,” he told the report’s authors. In the dunes, on the rocks, more bodies. He heard voices screaming. A fellow traveller named John could not take it anymore and jumped, dying instantly.
According to the report, official figures indicate that a thousand bodies were recovered between 2020 and May 2024 on this journey, but both the IOM and the MCC say that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that, in reality, at least twice as many migrants die in the desert than at sea, putting the estimate at around 15,000. Accidents caused by reckless driving in the desert cause 42% of deaths, 24% due to heat, dehydration or hunger and 12% due to physical violence, according to this study.
Saeed, from Somalia, told UNHCR that the beatings and torture began when they arrived in Libya. “No one can bear the hunger, the neglect and the ill-treatment in the traffickers’ detention centre. You are chained and they apply electricity to you. You get rashes all over your body, but you cannot take care of yourself. You get food, pasta, once a day. If you are thirsty, they give you water mixed with petrol. They don’t let you sleep night or day. I didn’t think I would survive,” he told interviewers.
For many of them it is dangerous to stay in their countries, but it is also dangerous to go to Europe.
Xavier Creach, UNHCR coordinator for the Sahel
“International protection actors cannot tolerate this continuing to happen,” adds Creach. “We see refugees risking their lives in a terrible way. That is why it is very important to be able to offer them local asylum options. For many of them it is dangerous to stay in their countries, but it is also dangerous to go to Europe.” UNHCR puts emphasis on protection in situ, in the countries of the region. “We have to offer young people study and work options. In Chad, for example, we have given 650 scholarships to refugees to study at the universities of Abeche or N’Djamena,” he adds. But, in the end, the problem is funding to reach everyone.
The traffickers are demanding more and more money to let them go. If they don’t have any, they send videos to their families while they torture them. Some of the hotspots for physical punishment are Sabha (Libya), Tamanrraset (Algeria) or Agadez (Niger). Jamal, an Eritrean, told UNHCR about his ordeal. “In the end, all they want is money. They tell you to call your family to pay the ransom. Until the money arrives, they torture and beat you (…) In a way, you feel like you are dead. Sometimes I couldn’t walk and even when I was standing I was shaking. The torture varies from person to person. They use sticks and guns and electrocute some. They used to heat rubber to burn the skin. I witnessed a woman being beaten with a stick, and after a few hours she died because some vital organs were damaged.”
For women, physical violence is often accompanied by sexual abuse and rape. One refugee woman recounts how she cut her hair and dressed as a man to undertake the journey, but the van driver discovered her secret and raped her in exchange for not telling others. “Those few hours felt like centuries. When we arrived at the abandoned building where we were supposed to hide, I thought I could hide in the crowd, but he followed my every move. I heard his footsteps approaching. I tried desperately to stop him, with all my might. Then he left, after promising not to tell anyone that I was a woman. Unfortunately, he did not keep his promise. The next morning we continued on, it was a long journey, suffering enormous pain.”
The Sudanese conflict is causing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 26 million people facing acute malnutrition and some 12 million displaced from their homes. Of these, two million are in neighbouring countries such as Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia. In Burkina Faso, there are three million internally displaced people and 300,000 people who have fled the country, including to neighbouring states such as Mali, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Only a few tens of thousands are trying to cross into Europe. “But if we cannot guarantee them basic protection and services in countries in the region, many more will take the risk,” insists Creach.
You can follow Future Planet in X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and subscribe here to our newsletter.
#Torture #kidnapping #murder #rape #Africas #wars #push #refugees #hellish #Sahara #route