Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a general overview on the global challenges linked with undocumented migrations from the Sub-Saharan West Africa to Europe, linking these dynamics with theoretical approaches on international migrations and including a case study, undocumented migrations flux from Ivory Coast. This paper is divided into three main parts. The first focuses on the major structural and behavioral factors motivating West African populations to migrate, with an emphasis put on Ivory Coast, a country particularly concerned with global South-North migration. The second part follows the path of undocumented migrants and their journey through the Saharan desert to the Mediterranean shores. Economic stakes of “migrant roads” in Niger and the human rights threats implied by the security issues in Libya are highlighted. The third part presents an overview of different political answers given to undocumented migrants movements from the sub-Saharan region to Europe. A multiscale approach is adopted, from international agreements at the United Nations level to European disagreements and national “voluntary return” deployed by Ivory Coast, our case study.
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Notes
- 1.
Center-periphery studies in international relations already shown in the 1970s–1980s a migration tendency from “underdeveloped” African countries (periphery) to Europe (center) as a consequence of capitalist development mechanisms considering a Marxist development theory (Gregory and Piché 1978).
- 2.
Our main case study throughout this chapter will be Ivoirian undocumented migrants, based on data taken from official reports available online from the International Organization for Migration and a study conducted by IOM Ivory Coast. The study was conducted at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Airport in Abidjan and consisted into interviews with Ivoirian citizens that were “returnees” from Libya, at their arrival at Félix Houphouët Boigny Airport in Abidjan, as they were benefiting from a multilateral program. The study took place in the presence of Institut Afrique Monde Côte d’Ivoire members that generously made their documentation available to the author who was working as their Parisian office counterpart at that time.
- 3.
Aforementioned data used throughout this chapter are available at: https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/country/docs/cote-divoire/Cote-d%27Ivoire-Rapport-Profilage-2017.pdf. See methodology details on page 3 of the report. Study conducted on more than 1,000 Ivoirian migrants in 2017.
- 4.
“By definition, because it is irregular, such migration is difficult to quantify. The figures put forward are extrapolated from the number of arrivals, not departures. That is terrible, but how else can we assess the scale of the phenomenon other than in a very approximate way?” (Author’s own translation) Taken from an Interview of Mr. Ibrahim SY SAVANÉ, by Mrs. Marie Miran-Guyon 2017. This interview by Miran-Guyon is referred to several times in throughout this chapter and is available online (in French) at https://www.cairn.info/revue-afrique-contemporaine-2017-3-page-255.htm.
- 5.
These authors also consider two other types of international migration; forced migration, and international retirement migration.
- 6.
However, in most cases, Ivoirian fleeing the 2011 crisis later returned to Ivory Coast with less economic power than when they left, according to Ibrahim Sy Savané (Op. Cit).
- 7.
Data taken from “The Irregular migration from West Africa to Europe: What challenges for ECOWAS countries?” Report of the regional colloquium 12, 13, and 14 March 2019, Abidjan. UNESCO, Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, ECOWAS, European Union.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Economic Community of West African States.
- 10.
Data taken from an interview of Mr. Ibrahim SY SAVANÉ, by Mrs. Marie Miran-Guyon (2017).
- 11.
ASCPE, “Putting migration at the heart of EU cooperation with Africa”, seminar report of Association’s UE-Afrique platform (“plateforme UEAfrique(s)”), directed by Claude FISCHER-HERZOG, 31 January 2019, with the participation of Michel FOUCHER.
- 12.
Data taken from a Nigerian official survey conducted in 2016, consulted within Olivier Walther’s cartography (2018), in Kirwin & Anderson’s report for OECD on “Identifying the factors driving West African migration”, P14.
- 13.
Based on 2019 official figures from the International Organization for Migration. “IOM’s Missing Migrants Project tracks deaths of migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, who have gone missing along mixed migration routes worldwide” https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Examples of these criminal organizations would include Islamist groups engaged in smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, terrorist operations and, in our case, human trafficking.
- 16.
The war directly generated casualties among undocumented migrants, as it was the case in July 2019 when a fighter jet bombed a migrants detention center in Tajoura, next to Tripoli, killing 53 and injuring 130 sub-Saharan migrants (Ganguly 2019).
- 17.
United Nations General Assembly, Intergovernmental Conference for the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, Marrakech, 10 and 11 December 2018, final document of the conference. https://undocs.org/fr/A/CONF.231/3.
- 18.
One example is the EURODAC system, which is supposed to process all the asylum applications received throughout the European Union through a single file. This system was set up following the signing of the first EU-wide Dublin agreements in 2003. More recently, the so-called “Dublin III” agreements came into force in 2013, allowing the prior registration of the application for refugee status from the Member State where the individual entered the Union. In addition to the differences in the migration reception policies of each European Union member state and the growing ideological opposition between governments, the number of individuals for whom the point of entry into the European Union is Spain, Malta, or Italy also makes compliance with this normative text complex in practice.
- 19.
As the conference “Entre dos Orillas, Migraciones: Causas y Efectos” during which the original presentation that preceded this chapter took place in Laayoune, Morocco.
- 20.
International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) database, CIDPM in French, 2019.
- 21.
As shown throughout this part, there are many issues on which urgent action must be taken: the dangerousness of the road transport of migrants by smugglers in overloaded vehicles, on some of the deadliest roads in the region, the crossing of the Sahara, the confinement in detention centers where living conditions are inhuman, human trafficking, and the risks of sailing across the Mediterranean sea.
- 22.
The information on this program’s title was taken from an internal note of the Institut Afrique Monde Côte d’Ivoire reporting on voluntary return operations of Ivoirian migrants from Tripoli, 2018.
- 23.
Source Migration Data Portal & International Organization for Migration, 2019, Migrant flow, voluntary return, country of origin.
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Klingelschmitt, N.A.C. (2021). Undocumented Migration Dynamics from West Africa to Europe. In: Cedillo González, C., Espín Ocampo, J. (eds) Human Displacement from a Global South Perspective. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64819-0_5
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