Everywhere the ranks of the 'sans papiers' are growing. By far the largest category of documented deaths in 1996 comprise the suicide of asylum-seekers, mostly in detention, to which we add nine cases of death due to institutional neglect. But in 1996 this figure has more than doubled. We categorise it as a death due to institutional neglect because, although the alarm was raised immediately and the water police came quickly, they made no attempt to rescue him. Where once western profiteers set up companies in Africa to reap the profits of colonial plunder, today private companies, like France's James Budd, are opening offices in the Ivory Coast to redirect deportees from Europe across the African continent.
Deportees equals profit.
This is the 'heart of darkness' at the centre of European asylum policy. In Spain, over the summer, a national scandal erupted after the violent group deportations of hundreds of Africans, some sedated, others gagged and bound with packing tape. In September, an unnamed Nigerian deportee to Guinea-Bissau died after soldiers opened fire on a demonstration by the deportees against the conditions in which they were being held. As the Spanish authorities deported the man without considering his asylum claim or his likely fate once expelled, Spanish policy is directly responsible for his death, which we categorise here as resulting from institutional neglect. The fate of several other deportees, such as Nigerian Felix Erhahon, deported from Germany and probably arrested by the security services, or Syrian Taran, deported from Switzerland and probably arrested as soon as he landed on Syrian soil, is unknown.