AFRICA/NIGER — Migrants – The story of those who failed to make it and crossed again the Sahel to return home
Niamey, Agenzia Fides – Since the 1990s Niger has been a key transit area for migrations from West and Central Africa, Libya, Algeria, and, in some cases, Europe. All must face desert before they can reach their destination in North African countries, or before they can face the Mediterranean to attempt to reach Europe.
Drama within drama are the expulsions from Niger by border states. From January 2022 to May 2022 Algeria sent 14,196 migrants to Niger.
Father Mauro Armanino is a missionary of The Society of African Missions (SMA), based in Niamey. He collected testimonies from migrants who failed to migrate to better lives and are now in Niger, waiting to return home.
“Cécé, who was a tiler in his native Guinea has just returned from Algeria where he could never leave the construction site where he found a precarious job. He claims he was underpaid and paid occasionally. He decided it was not worth his time and returned home to seek the same job he had taken the year before. This roundtrip took place in stages and covered political geographies as well as imagined borders, expulsions deportations, targeted removals, and defeated destinies. It is difficult to feel ashamed for the time, money and energy that has been wasted, but it is also a relief to know that you are still here, despite everything. This is a big deal in these times when the seas, deserts, and especially the use border are all sophisticated systems of point elimination.
They arrive in town the next day and say they have been there for a few weeks. Both were born in Liberia and fled together for Sudan in the secret hope of reaching Europe via Egypt. Maurice went to university to teach, while Amos was an information technology technician. The military dictatorship in Sudan has made the situation worse. They feel it is impossible to stay any longer in Sudan so they are forced to live in Niamey as guests at the Great Market. They are eager to return to the country they left behind, after being deceived by a president and peace that was without bread or imagination. They are full of adventure and travel smells, and they return to Liberia with a few years more to share their stories with those they left behind.
They live with James, his four children, and their mother under a precarious tent which protects them from all dangers. They are the “castaways” of development, as Serge Latouche, an economist friend, called them many years ago. They are survivors of a society which not only creates, but also needs them. It is useful for keeping the ship’s crew away from the horizon, so they don’t mutiny.
Alfred claims that he has never visited us and that he has returned from Algeria. He also claims that he was first hunted down in Algeria and then expelled. That is what it said
He had stolen his luggage at the bus stop and that was why he did not have papers! He would admit the truth the next day and it was his only story. He and other names are the creators of a world that only sand can return to with a smile or complicity. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 23/1/2023)
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Source: fides.org