EU-sponsored interventions targeting irregular migration in Agadez have been very effective in putting human smugglers out of business. EU police training missions and support for the Nigerien development of migration action plans contributed to the arrests of at least 282 facilitators of migration and the confiscation of at least 300-350 pickup trucks used to transport migrants through the desert.[20] This resulted in an estimated 75 percent reduction, at the least, of mixed migration movement passing through and north of Agadez in 2017.[21] Yet migration continues – albeit in a less visible way. This raises the question of how contemporary migration governance in the Sahel, such as the hard security interventions outlined above, has affected the journeys of irregular migrants through the region – particularly with regard to human rights violations. What impact has current migration governance had on migrants’ vulnerability?

Increase in human rights abuses

The northern part of Niger has always been a difficult zone to control, and a dangerous zone to navigate. Smugglers of goods and people, traffickers of various illegal commodities, road bandits and non-state armed groups use remote Saharan routes across and along the borders with Mali, Algeria, Libya and Chad to transport their wares and/or to attack the convoys of others. Before mid-2016, when Law No. 2015-036 against human smuggling began to be enforced, migrant transporters protected themselves against the dangers associated with traversing the desert by joining the weekly official transport convoy between Agadez and Dirkou – midway between Agadez and the Libyan border post of Toumo. Nigerien armed forces provided protection to this convoy, thereby ensuring relatively safe passage for migrants and transporters alike.[24]

Since mid-2016, however, vehicles transporting migrants are no longer able to follow the convoy, as the Nigerien authorities are arresting migrant drivers and guides.[25] This has resulted in a shift from the official route to many unofficial ones.[26] Indeed, as many officials acknowledge, mobility did not end, and many smugglers now drive on little-used roads, avoiding entering Agadez and other towns altogether.[27] One consequence of this development was that from 2016 onwards the trip became increasingly risky – or even deadly – for migrants. Figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) show that the number of deaths in the Nigerien desert has risen since Law No. 2015-036 began being enforced. According to the organisation’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, the number of migrant deaths in the desert on the roads between Agadez and southern Libya or southern Algeria rose from 71 in 2015, to 95 in 2016, and to 427 in 2017.[28] The Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi) data collected by the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) shows that the overwhelming majority of reported migrant deaths in Niger occur in Agadez and ‘Other’ (which, for the surveys conducted in Libya, covers the desert region beyond Agadez city) (see Figures 1 and 2).[29]

In addition, drivers increasingly abandon migrants in the desert, particularly if they are being chased, or fear they are being chased, by security forces and want to lighten their load in order to escape. Drivers also force their passengers to walk, sometimes for long distances, in particular in the Niger-Algeria borderlands, to avoid towns, checkpoints on main roads, and patrols.[30] In the first nine months of 2018, IOM rescued 412 migrants in the desert around Agadez and 938 migrants in the area surrounding Dirkou and Bilma.[31] On new desert routes, migrant cars also increasingly face attacks by road bandits aiming to steal migrants’ or drivers’ possessions, or the vehicles themselves.[32] 4Mi data reflect the prevalence of robberies of migrants in the Agadez region: 60 percent of robberies reported to have taken place in Niger occurred in Agadez (West Africa dataset). In the Libya dataset, which accounts for protection incidents that took place after the last 4Mi monitoring point in Agadez city, this increases to 87 percent.[33]

Furthermore, the situation in the walled compounds in Agadez city where migrants and refugees are lodged during their stay in the town has changed for the worse. Respondents with access to these ‘ghettos’ reveal that these compounds – controlled by operators involved in the irregular migration industry – have become smaller and are relocated more frequently to avoid detection. Previously, the compounds would generally house some 200-300 people at a time in one or two big rooms or courtyards. Today, ghettos are usually small houses, often located in the city centre, and housing no more than 10 migrants on average. Other ghettos are located outside of the city entirely – catering to new migration routes that circumvent Agadez altogether. Both developments have made it more difficult for humanitarian agencies to locate migrants and provide services. It has also become more difficult for these agencies to gain access to the ghettos, as ghetto managers fear detection by the authorities.[34]

This is highly problematic, as migrants rely on humanitarian aid while they are in the Agadez ghettos.[35] Conditions in the ghettos are increasingly precarious, with high levels of food insecurity. The ghettos outside the city tend not to have access to water and sanitation facilities. Resultant health problems often remain untreated – as do psychosocial conditions.[36] It should therefore come as little surprise that sickness and lack of access to medical assistance are the main causes of witnessed migrant and refugee deaths in Niger in the 4Mi West Africa dataset, which, due to the design of the migrant surveys, focuses more on the city of Agadez than on the desert region beyond.

The ghetto operators often stop migrants from leaving the ghetto, for fear that they will be detected and arrested.[37] Several sources also report that migrants may be held hostage for ransom when they are smuggled into the city.[38] At the same time, migrants are staying in ghettos for longer periods of time, as desert journeys have become riskier and more expensive. Prices for transport to Libya and Algeria have gone up due to increased risks for smugglers. Police officials have also become more active in bribery and the confiscation of migrants’ possessions on the route between Niamey and Agadez as well as in Agadez itself (see Box 3). These developments have contributed to a situation in which migrants are stuck for longer periods of time in Agadez because they do not have enough money to deal with these unforeseen and higher costs.

Diversification of routes towards Chad

The implementation of Law No. 2015-036 has affected not only routes and ghettos in Niger itself, but as demand for migration remains high, routes have shifted to neighbouring countries to satisfy this demand. Chad has felt the consequences of these changes, with smugglers opening up new routes through its territory – routes that are often longer, more dangerous and more expensive.

A 2018 study by the Clingendael Conflict Research Unit has shown that this is also a consequence of developments in migration governance in Sudan. There, in 2016, the government responded to European pressure to stop irregular migration by deploying the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – a paramilitary group of re-hatted Darfur Arab militias (janjawid) that have been under direct presidential control since 2016 – on the routes leading to Libya. In practice, this has meant that the RSF has taken over the migration smuggling industry in the border region and arrests migrants using the services of their civilian competitors. Established civilian smugglers who are unwilling to associate with the RSF have changed their routes towards Chad in response.[44] A main, new route towards Libya for migrants coming from the Horn of Africa, including the Sudanese themselves, now passes through the town of Tina at the border of Chad and Sudan.[45] The RSF also transports migrants to the Sudan-Chad border, where they hand over the migrants to Chadian civilian smugglers.

As a result of these developments in Niger and Sudan, Chad has increasingly become a major transit country to Libya for migrants from both West Africa and the Horn of Africa.[46] Migrants interviewed in Chad reported various abuses they suffered at the hands of Chadian smugglers. Smugglers asked for more money and sometimes beat up migrants. Others were abandoned in the desert after having paid for the whole trip to Libya.[47] Unlike in Libya, kidnapping migrants for ransom is uncommon in Chad. Nevertheless, some Chadian smugglers sold migrants to Libyans, who then kidnapped them for ransom or coerced them into forced labour. Forced labour has also been reported in gold mines on Chadian soil (see Box 4).[48]

In the borderland between Chad and Libya, in particular on the Libyan side, various armed groups, including Chadian bandits, regularly set up roadblocks and patrols, with migrants being particular targets. Some groups specifically attack migrant convoys in order to kidnap and resell migrants, in particular Eritreans, to Libyan traffickers. Others ask for immediate payments. A.O., a Darfurian migrant mentioned above, witnessed the assassination of his driver, who had run out of money and could not pay the militia operating a checkpoint: ‘At night, the militiamen came, drunk, and started beating up the driver, then they shot at him and killed him. They looked like bandits even if they kept telling us they were the authority.’[49]

Increased controls, in particular on the road between Niger and Libya, have not only pushed West African migrants towards Chad but have also resulted in a re-opening or an increased circulation on routes west of the Agadez-Libya axis, notably routes between Niger and Algeria. To avoid the route through Agadez, some West African migrants have taken to routes through Mali to Algeria. These routes, which run through the regions of Gao, Kidal and Tessalit (to join Tinzawatène, Timiaouine or Bordi Mokhtar across the Algerian border), and to a lesser extent through the Timbuktu region (Ber) to the Algerian border, had lost their popularity during the insecurity in northern Mali that began in 2012.[53] Today, radical armed groups in northern Mali benefit from migrant smuggling or from attacking migrant convoys.

In 2016, for example, N.D., a Guinean migrant, travelled from Gao to Algeria alongside 70 passengers on the top of a lorry. North of Gao, they came upon a roadblock, where turbaned gunmen asked for XOF 5,000 per migrant. ‘When we were authorised to continue, the driver told us there were five to seven more roadblocks on our way but that he would bypass them. We crossed the border without any control. We arrived in Timiaouine [in Algeria] in a courtyard with armed men. We learned we were now in the hands of Mohamed Talhandak.’[54] N.D. and fellow migrants were then sold by Talhandak’s gunmen to sub-Saharan (Guinean, Senegalese and Gambian) traffickers associated with the armed group. This is not an isolated incident, as, according to the UN Security Council Panel of Experts on Mali, ‘the case of Mahamadou Ag Rhissa, also known as Mohamed Talhandak, best illustrates the connection between migrant smuggling and armed group activity [more generally].’[55]

Because routes from Niger to Algeria are also watched, and because Algerian security forces exert a much tighter control on their borders than, possibly, any other government in the region, migration to Algeria through Mali and Niger generally involves long and dangerous walks in the desert.[56] Once in Algeria, migrants who are not planning to work in the country but rather to travel further, including crossing the Mediterranean, may head to Libya. Migrants have become aware, however, that the Mediterranean crossing between Libya and Europe has been increasingly closed by interceptions from the Libyan Coast Guard, backed by the EU and Italy, and that sub-Saharan migrants face high costs and horrific abuses in Libya. Many therefore now head to Morocco. Interviews with migrants who arrived in 2018 in Europe confirm that European policies along the central Mediterranean route (including in Libya and Niger) provoked a resumption of migration across both Algeria and Mauritania to Morocco, then to Spain.[57] This would explain why Spain has seen an increased number of arrivals in 2018 (see Table 1).

In return, Algeria and Morocco have begun to deport migrants to remote desert areas along their southern borders. The 2008 Law on Conditions of Entry, Stay and Movement of Foreigners in Algeria (No. 08-11) allows for the expulsion of irregular migrants from the country.[59] Algeria also signed an expulsion agreement with Niger in December 2014.[60] As a consequence of this agreement, expelled Nigeriens are treated differently from other irregular migrants – meaning that they are transported directly to Agadez. The Agadez authorities subsequently organise the return of these migrants to their regions of origin, mainly Diffa and Zinder. In 2018, the number of expelled Nigeriens has soared, with the numbers for the period January-June 2018 (26,645 expelled Nigeriens) already more than doubling those for 2017 (11,188 expelled Nigeriens).[61] According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, these expulsions do not allow for individual risk assessments and due process guarantees, and therefore do not respect the fundamental principle of non-refoulement.[62]

West African migrants cannot be expelled to Niger under the agreement between Niger and Algeria. Instead, the Algerian authorities round up these migrants and drop them off in the desert – some 25 kilometres away from the Niger border town of Assamakka. The migrants are forced to walk through an inhospitable terrain without adequate provisions. Several human rights organisations have sounded the alarm on the grave human rights violations and deaths that are the result.[63] In the words of William Lacy Swing, then Director General of IOM, ‘Irregular migrants, including many pregnant women and minors, should not be left without food or water or expected to walk for miles in blistering 30-degree temperatures to seek safety in the desert.’

The government of Niger gave IOM responsibility for addressing the situation of non-Nigerien migrants expelled to Niger.[64] In that capacity, IOM has counted the number of migrants crossing the border between Algeria and Niger on foot since May 2017. Numbers have increased from 135 in May 2017 to more than 8,000 in July 2018 (with 4,666 expulsions taking place between January and July 2018).[65] According to IOM, a total of 11,276 expelled irregular migrants have arrived on foot in Niger since they began their count. This figure does not take into account the number of migrants who died in the desert or who were dropped at the border with Mali.[66] Amnesty International has similarly reported that Morocco has swept up an estimated 5,000 people since July and left them in desert areas close to the Algerian border or in the south of the country.[67] With regard to the collective expulsions from Algeria to Niger, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants has stated that these are ‘in utter violation of international law, including the fundamental principle of non-refoulement and due process guarantees’.[68]

Gender-based violence and human trafficking

While the majority of migrants travelling through Chad and Niger are young men, some are women, notably from Nigeria and Eritrea, and they are often the victims of violence. Rape and forced prostitution are widespread in Libya,[69] but female migrants and refugees also experience such abuses, though to a lesser extent, on sections of their journeys before they reach Libya, including in Niger.[70] There are also reports that female migrants unable to pay bribes at checkpoints in Niger were forced to have sex with members of the Nigerien security forces manning those checkpoints.[71] The 4Mi data reflect this: between 8 percent (West Africa dataset) and 14 percent (Libya dataset) of reported incidents of sexual assault in Niger are ascribed to immigration officials and security forces (see Figures 6 and 7). There are also reports of rapes and forced prostitution of sub-Saharan migrants in Algeria and Morocco. In Morocco, women are reportedly abused sexually by members of security forces in order to avoid arrest or deportation, as well as by Moroccan or sub-Saharan smugglers and intermediaries in exchange for accommodation or the crossing to Spain.[72]

Some migrant women, notably from Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, appear to have been, knowingly or not, in the hands of traffickers since the beginning of their journey.[73] They may be victims of rape or forced prostitution at different stages along their journey, including in Nigerien transit hubs such as Agadez and Dirkou.[74] In the ghettos in Agadez, there are many accounts of women who end up in local prostitution networks. They are mostly Nigerian and work to repay a debt. The networks seem fairly well established and there is often a system in place where older Nigerian women ‘manage’ a number of younger girls (often minors).[75]

More generally, the main danger faced by sub-Saharan migrants heading to Europe in recent years has been that of being kidnapped by – or sold to – traffickers, who then torture the migrants while or before phoning their relatives in order to extract a ransom. This practice can be traced back to the Sinai desert in Egypt, where Bedouin tribes kidnapped and held mainly Eritrean refugees between 2009 and 2014. These refugees were reputed to be able to pay high ransoms due to their diaspora networks.[76] The practice has since spread to Libya, where it is currently implemented in a systematic manner to migrants from any country – with Eritreans and other people from the Horn of Africa being considered particularly valuable. Migrants who do not manage to contact relatives or pay a ransom are often forced to work for free on farms, in construction or in gold mines – if they do not die from torture or detention conditions first.[77]

Migrants who were victims of human trafficking networks in Libya often say that those who detained and abused them included non-Libyans, including sub-Saharans, some from the same country as themselves. Traffickers were sometimes former migrants, including from West Africa, who, after being abused themselves, were selected to be intermediaries, notably for their language skills. The traffickers also included more powerful non-Libyan players, such as Sudanese, Eritreans and Ethiopians, who move back and forth by plane between Libya and their own countries, and most likely play crucial roles in recruiting migrants and transferring money.[78]

Until recently, Nigeriens and Chadians were rarely mentioned as traffickers – despite the fact that they make up significant diaspora communities in Libya. On the contrary, the diaspora from neighbouring countries such as Niger, Chad and Sudan appear to have shown solidarity towards their respective countrymen trafficked in Libya, including by providing them with accommodation, finding them paid labour, and paying their ransoms as well their fares for the Mediterranean crossing. However, since at least 2017, Nigerien migrant smugglers mentioned that traffickers operating notably in Sebha were offering them money, or even vehicles, in exchange for handing over their passengers to the traffickers, even if those passengers had paid in full for their journey.[79] It is impossible to estimate how common this practice is, yet migrants themselves report that Nigerien and Chadian smugglers increasingly sell their passengers for kidnapping for ransom, bonded labour or slave labour, in Libya as well as in Algeria.[80]

There are, to a lesser extent, reports that such abuses may also be spreading to Niger and Chad. As early as 2013-14, a Syrian migrant kidnapped in Libya was detained in Niger by bandits before being released by the Nigerien authorities.[81] In Chad, M.A., a Chadian migrant, reported that, while travelling between Kalaït and Libya, he and fellow travellers were repeatedly beaten on the road, and threatened with being abandoned in the desert by their own smugglers, who were asking for more money.[82] Chadian smugglers also reportedly held their passengers in debt bondage in goldmines in the Chad-Libya borderlands and sold them for slave labour in Libyan goldmines. A Darfurian refugee in Chad told Radio France Internationale how, as early as 2014-15, after he had agreed to look for gold to refund the Chadian smuggler who had driven him to Kouri Bougoudi, this smuggler sold him in Kilinje gold mine: ‘The boss […] took us to the mines of Kalinga [Kilinje], Libya. The Chadians sold us to the Libyans.’[83] The 4Mi dataset shows that these are not isolated examples: 1.5 percent of migrants and refugees who travelled through Niger reported having witnessed kidnapping incidents (West Africa dataset).[84]

Kidnapping for ransom and for forced or slave labour also appear to be spreading to Algeria and Morocco, in spite of the fact that, unlike Libya, these are not weak states but countries with a strong government forces. B.I., a Guinean migrant, believes he and his fellow Guinean companion were sold to Algerian traffickers by their Guinean coaxer (intermediary) operating in Mali. ‘We were driven to a house outside Algiers. The guard of the house asked us for money, so I understood we had been sold by [our Guinean coaxer]. We were 15 customers of the same coaxers, guarded by [sub-Saharan] Africans armed with AK rifles. There were more than 100 other prisoners, from Mali, Niger, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cameroon. We were fed only once a day and beaten each day. They gave us a phone to call our family. If you don’t succeed in calling your family, they set you apart and whip you. My friend was burnt with a red-hot screwdriver. Some died from torture or sickness. After a while, those who still could not get their family to pay a ransom, were driven to Algiers to work in construction.’ B.I. had to do so several times until he managed to escape alongside some 10 captive migrants.[85]

This very concerning development suggests that the criminalisation of human smuggling has pushed people on to routes and into spheres of influence where they are increasingly susceptible to becoming victims of human trafficking. Migrants and refugees are increasingly commoditised and dehumanised now that this practice has begun to spread across the region.