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15/01/2018

The Niger-Libya migration route. An odyssey shaped by Saharan connections and European fears, 2000-2017.- Irene Díaz de Aguilar Hidalgo

Thousands of Sub-Saharans cross the Sahara every year trying to reach Europe, using the migration route that crosses Niger and Libya. After Gaddafi’s fall in 2011, this “southern border” of the European Union has become more difficult to control, and migrants there suffer terrible abuses that have reached the front pages of the media. The north of Niger, poor and unstable, depends today on the economic activity generated by transit migrants—an important resource for Libya’s militias as well. But this situation is not only the result of the anarchy that followed the Libyan revolution: Niger’s poverty, the drastic political changes in Libya and Europe’s migration policies have shaped this route during several decades.

Author:  Irene Díaz de Aguilar Hidalgo

 

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