Libya brings 613 refugees to Europe
613 people traveled from their native Niger to neighboring Libya, many of them planning to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, something thousands of sub-Saharan Africans try to do every year.
But at the end of last month, the people were expelled from the country by Libyan authorities in one of the highest numbers in years. The mass deportations are part of a common practice: North African governments use EU-funded anti-immigration tactics to prevent sub-Saharan African migrants from making their way to Europe.
After months of detention and days of travel across the Sahara desert, these 613 men arrived in a Libyan coastal city near Niger on January 3, exhausted and hungry, some barefoot and sick. The two men died shortly after arriving in Niger.
“I lived in hell,” said one of the men, Salmana Esufu. Mr Issoufou, 18, said he was beaten with wire and weapons by Libyan prison guards during his eight months in prison.
With anti-immigrant sentiment rising across Europe, from France to Germany to Hungary, sub-Saharan Africans trying to reach the continent are being pushed back by North African governments at a rate not seen in years. The EU has signed bilateral agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Mauritania, which include financial assistance to stem the flow of refugees.
The strategy seems to be working: Illegal border crossings are down significantly by 2024, recently Data From EU border agency Frontex.
But rights groups say the methods being used to prevent sub-Saharan migrants from making it to Europe have well-documented human rights abuses, such as the so-called desert wastes. Refugees are left without food and water in the Sahara, or He was held in North African prisons where they meet Torturesexual violence and starvation.
Tunisia has left more than 12,000 people, including children and pregnant women, stranded in the Libyan desert after signing a deal with the European Union in 2023. According to the United Nations. Last year, the European Union signed a similar agreement with Mauritania.
In Libya, the European Union has been accused of funding the country’s coast guard. Firing live ammunition during interventions in the sea and handing over refugees to rebel militias.
Examination by A combination of news media Last year, vehicles and information provided by EU countries showed that security forces in North Africa were using them to arrest refugees or transport them to desert areas.
The 613 people sent to Niger this month had been detained in Libya since at least last fall, Niger state officials said, when they escorted them across the border to Dirku, a Niger city about 260 miles south of Libya.
Two people died in Dirku, according to Father Cheke, who helped the men there and is a social worker at Alarmphone, a nonprofit that rescues refugees in the Sahara desert.
The men arrived in Agadez, the largest city in northern Niger and a transit hub for migrants, last week. They were exhausted and dehydrated, and some had skin lesions and broken arms. Half a dozen people who were deported all said in interviews with the New York Times that they were mistreated by Libyan authorities.
36-year-old Adamu Harouna said that while he was in prison, prison guards burned plastic on him.
The mass evacuation from Libya echoes a similar movement from Algeria, which shares a 580-mile border with Niger and displaced more than 31,000 people last year, the highest number in years, he said. Alarm phone Sahara.
Algerian authorities have abandoned migrants at the border with Niger and forced them to walk for hours through the desert before reaching the nearest town. The refugees are beaten and physically abused in Algerian prisons. (The European Union does not have a migration agreement with Algeria.)
Although deportations from Libya to Niger have so far been lower than in Algeria, recent mass displacements have raised fears that they may increase. Last year, hundreds of African citizens were forcibly returned from Libya to Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia. According to the United Nations.
Refugees deported by the United Nations International Organization for Migration in Africa will return to their countries. In Niger, the organization transports people abandoned in border areas to and from Agadez on several flights a week.
The organization has organized buses for Niger boys. Mr. Esufu, 18, said he would stay in Niger. Mr. Harona said he plans to return to Libya as soon as possible.
Ibrahim Manzo Diallo from Niamey, Niger; Psycho Jammeh From Dakar, Senegal and Jenny Gross From London.
