This piece profiles and discusses internal displacement as well as transcontinental migration among Sub-Saharan African migrants to the European Union and the Middle Eastern Countries. It is reported that the overall human movement, displacement, and migration among the migrants of Sub-Saharan countries appears to be caused by the combined effect of natural disasters or human-made causalities (IOM, 2019). Given these triggering factors, the media and public perceptions depict Africa as the largest contributor of international migrants. However, some reports in 2017 indicated that the African continent has been the fourth largest contributor of international migration with Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia leading the pack. This piece tries to document the transcontinental flow of sub-Saharan countries migrants.
According to the International Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) reached an all-time high at the end of 2019. This is attributed to conflicts and natural disasters. Conflicts and natural disasters have been triggering over 33.4 million new internal displacements across 145 countries and territories. Natural disasters alone caused 24.9 million displacements in 2019 – the highest figure recorded since 2012[1] – three times more than displacements caused by conflict and violence. The ever-increasing crisis coupled with climate change and socio-economic instabilities further exacerbate people’s vulnerabilities and erode their resilience against the multitude of difficulties, especially for people in developing countries.
West African emigration flow
Migration and displacement are recurring problems in the sub-Saharan African context. Migration in this region is mainly triggered by insecurity, harsh climatic conditions, public health emergencies, and socio-economic challenges. Conflicts and natural disasters have been on rise in 2019 in the sub-Saharan African context. Insecurity and climate variability have forced shifts in the seasonal migratory routes of movements to western Europe as well as the Middle Eastern countries from most of West and Central African countries. Specifically, crises in the Northern and Eastern parts of Burkina Faso led to the displacement of 550,000 people in 2019. The protracted destabilization in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon, displaced more than 5.8 million people in the entire region.
Insecurity and armed conflict-induced migration and displacement have been staggering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). For example, DRC has been experiencing complex and never-ending crises related to armed conflict, natural disasters, and epidemics. These interlinked disasters have continued to affect the lives of millions of Congolese and created one of the world’s most complex, acute, and long-standing humanitarian crises. In the same year, nearly 1.7 million new conflict-related displacements were reported. Along with this, 233,000 new displacements occurred due to disasters and related problems as well (IOM, 2019).This requires crisis mitigation and stabilization measures together with the provision of humanitarian assistance.
However, unlike the Eastern and Horn of Africa transnational migrants, the main route for migrants from West Africa is through Niger and Libya,to reach Italy via the Strait of Sicily (Western-East route). The average duration of the journey from the country of origin is 20 months and it would take 14 months of stay in Libya to commute further to Europe. For the migrants from West Africa, the North African countries representa place to live and work for a certain time, even if in a terrible condition[2]. Indeed,migrants fromSouthern African countries are using the same route to migrate to the Gulf States, the migration being induced by humanitarian crises. According to the report from IOM (2019), natural disasters caused ahumanitarian crisis and affected over 3.8 million people, and displaced over 650,000 livelihoods.
Transcontinental and interstate migration from the Horn
East and Horn of Africa countries are not exempted from transcontinental and interstate social movements and migration as well. According to IOM (2019), there were more than six million IDPs and over three million refugees and asylum seekers by the end of 2019 among the East and Horn of Africa countries. These countries have long been the hotspot of a significant level of internal and cross-border mobility, including intra-regional and extra-regional movements. These have led to the development of some of the largest migration routes on the continent. The most common causes of transnational migration in this region are attributed to disasters, environmental degradation, and the cumulative effects of conflict and instability in the region. The problem is especially huge in Burundi, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan, and affected millions of people.
The protracted Somalian crisis complicates the pursuit of long-term recovery and has caused more than 2.6 million IDPs and prolonged displacement.[3] Similarly, nearly 1.6 million people have been reportedly displaced due to a severe inter-ethnic conflict and related political instabilities in Ethiopia in the same year (IOM, 2019).The human movement that starts from the Horn of Africa has predominantly taken the Eastern Route, which runs from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, and to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This route has long been the most relevant migratory corridor in terms of volume and characteristics of different categories of people on the move such as refugees and economic migrants[4]. Moreover, migrants from the Horn are using Ethiopian, Sudan, and Libya routes to reach Italy via the Strait of Sicily (Eastern-Central Route).
Ironically, the current migration securitization regimes have failed to limit the transnational migration flow from the global south. It is argued that migration is happening despite and against the intention of the states. For example, there is a need for control exhibited by the states but there is the unintended admission of migrants that the current policies have failed to prevent from happening[5]. Contrary to the intention, extreme immigration control by the states leads to clandestine and irregular migration as well as a rise in undocumented migrants in the destination countries. ‘In fact, an escalation of border control by migration destination countries has unintended consequences. First, extreme border control leads to clandestine migration thereby living undocumented. Second, large-scale border control has proven to cause human smuggling and perpetuating irregular migration’. Thus, tailoring migration policies to accommodate the causes and dynamics of migration flow would potentially regularize legal migration.
In conclusion, efforts must be put in place to abate the underlying causes of mass displacement and transnational migration in sub-Saharan Africa. International organizations (such as IOM and other UN-affiliated organizations) and the global community must make efforts to counter the casualties in post-conflict migratory corridors. To this effect, the UN has been involved in crisis management in a comprehensive range of fields and at multiple stages in disaster responses through programs, funds, commissions, and specialized agencies (Jeong and Yeo, 2017)[6]. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (2020) has also provided a record $16 billion donors for inter-agency appeals between January and November 2019[7]. Most importantly, migration policies must be enforced only after taking into account the cause and dynamics of migration as well as the unintended consequences of controlling the borders.
[1]IOM (2019). Global Report-Operations and Emergencies.
[2] https://mediciperidirittiumani.org/en/exodi-migratory-routes-from-sub-saharan-countries-to-europe/
[3]IOM (2019). Global Report-Operations and Emergencies.
[4] https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/2020-migrant-movements-between-horn-africa-and-arabian-peninsula-january-december-2020
[5]Joppke and Guiraudon (no date). Controlling a new migration world
[6]Jeong, B. and Yeo, J. (2017). United Nations and Crisis Management. Accessed from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319097940
[7] Global Humanitarian Overview (2020). United nations-coordinated support to people affected by disaster and conflict
Mastewal Bitew is studying the Erasmus Mondus joint MITRA-Masters (Transnational Migration) in three European Universities (Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Wrocław, and University of Szeged) since 2019. He was formerly a full-time lecturer in the Department of Psychology of the University of Gondar, Ethiopia. He has published scholarly articles and participated in different leadership positions along with his teaching duty at the University of Gondar.