Some 7,000 Africans who gave up on migrating to Europe have been stranded in Niger since the coup last month in which members of the presidential guard overthrew the West African nation’s democratically elected president
After three months of crossing the desert and then watching other migrants die at sea in his failed attempt to reach Europe, Sahr John Yambasu gave up on getting across the Mediterranean and decided to go back home.
Niger is an important route both for Africans trying to reach Libya as a jumping off spot to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and those who are returning to their homes with help from the United Nations.“I feel sad because it’s a country that I don’t belong to. It’s not easy,” Yambasu said. U.N. officials estimate about 1,800 in Yambasu’s predicament are living on Niger’s streets because centers run by the International Organization for Migration are too crowded to take in more. The centers hold about 5,000 people trying to get home.
Pace worries the stall in the transiting of Africans seeking to get home could increase exploitation of vulnerable people by traffickers and smugglers who normally focus on individuals trying to migrate to Europe. COOPI assists the U.N. in hosting people, but has warned that it will run out of food and water if the borders don’t open soon.
It’s unclear how cooperative the new military leaders will be with the EU, which has now frozen assistance to Niger. Anitta Hipper, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, could not say Tuesday whether cooperation on migration had been suspended, saying only that the EU would continue to “monitor and evaluate the situation.”
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