The West African Castaways:
By: Iom - Un Migration
Tags: Africa, Humanitarian, United Nations

Dakar — Under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) can assist stranded migrants along the routes, in countries considered “transit countries” — Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Libya, Niger and Chad. So far, over 86,000 migrants stranded in these transit countries situated along the Central Mediterranean Routes were assisted since 2017 to voluntarily return home, among which 75,000 originating from West and Central Africa.

Yet, assistance to vulnerable migrants from other countries that are considered countries of origin (such as Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria) was not initially foreseen.

“One of my older brothers, who lives in Gabon, put me in contact with smugglers so I could join him there,” recalls Nadege, a young Togolese and one of the 117 survivors of a shipwreck in Kribi, in Southern Cameroon, on July 30, 2019.

“The smugglers sent me pictures of a nice boat in which I should travel. When I arrived at the departure point, I saw that we were about to board a very old boat. But I decided to carry on anyway,” she says.

That day, the makeshift boat was carrying 117 people when it left Cotonou, Benin for Gabon. Halfway, it ran out of fuel, and left its passengers stranded in the Gulf of Guinea. Luckily, the Cameroonian Navy heard the screams coming from the boat and brought the cohort to shores.

“The smugglers had promised that we would arrive in Gabon in three days, but we didn’t. We never did. We spent six days on the high seas. It took them days to admit we were stranded and that we didn’t have enough fuel to continue our journey,” says Emile, a young Togolese who also survived the shipwreck.

When the incident occured, an IOM team in Cameroon, including a doctor, went to Kribi to support the migrants. ©Bellya Sékpon/IOM

Once safe, they sought refuge in Ebodje, a fishermen village near Kribi, in Cameroon. As 117 rescued migrants in need of urgent medical and psychosocial support, protection and support, were stranded in the village, staff from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Cameroon were dispatched to Ebodje as soon as possible.

“When we heard what had happened, we immediately went there to assess the needs. The survivors already had received some support from the host community in Ebodje but there was great moral distress among them,” said Jan Bonhote, Programme Support Officer at IOM Cameroon. “Local authorities, including the Consulate of Burkina Faso from where some of the passengers originated, had monitored the group,” he added.

Community members and local authorities provided first-hand emergency response when the boat arrived in Ebodje. Over 80 survivors expressed their wish to go home, however there were no existing funds from the government, embassies, local and national partners or IOM to assist them with voluntary return.

Following several incidents such as the shipwreck off the Cameroonian coast, IOM requested the EU to open a fund under the Joint Initiative that would help assist migrants stranded in West African countries not initially covered by the Joint Initiative: the Regional Direct Assistance Fund for Vulnerable Cases (RDAF) was launched.

After the shipwreck, IOM temporarily relocated survivors in Kribi, a town with better access to basic services, before assisting the survivors with voluntary return. ©Bellya Sékpon/IOM

The objective of this 200,000 euros fund is to provide a flexible and timely tool to address urgent and unforeseen protection assistance needs to stranded migrants in a vulnerable situation. It covers the cost of assistance (including psychosocial support), return and/or reintegration of many stranded migrants in the region.

The need to assist stranded migrants in the region is particularly high as governments continue to lack financial resources to provide comprehensive and timely assistance to the most vulnerable cases, including trafficking survivors, medical cases and minors, thus necessitating international organizations and civil society efforts to support the most vulnerable.

“Collecting reliable data along these largely unpatrolled migration routes is challenging in West Africa, people may be disappearing without a trace or left stranded somewhere,” says Florence Kim, IOM Spokesperson for IOM in West and Central Africa. “It is difficult to have a clear idea of the extent of these migrants’ needs, but it is our priority to assist those who fall through the cracks of assistance,” she concluded.

After the shipwreck in Cameroon, and at the Cameroonian Government’s request, RDAF allowed IOM to temporarily relocate survivors in Kribi, a town with better access to basic services, before assisting the survivors with voluntary return. So far, 84 passengers returned home and have started their social, psychosocial and economic reintegration process with the support of RDAF.

“What if IOM was not there? The person would have to save up, for months, for years, knocking on every door, working left and right, to collect money to go back home. Moreover, he/she would have been exposed to a lot more risk and abuse. Our intervention is more than crucial,” says Marine Buckenham, Protection Officer at IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa.

Since the launch of the RDAF, 156 people have benefitted from IOM’s assistance, including 34 women and 24 children. So far, fifty per cent of the fund has been spent.

“While the media tend to cover exclusively African migration to Europe, our data reveal that an estimated 80 to 90% of migrants move within the West African region,” said Andreas De Boer, former programme officer at IOM Burkina Faso.

In West and Central Africa, intraregional mobility is largely driven by employment opportunities in labour-intensive areas. For instance, gold mining areas attract thousands of men, women and children who migrate to work on the extraction of gold and sell merchandises or offer their services on the sites. A series of DFID-funded researches revealed that more than half of migrants in mine areas are abused, exploited and that some were trafficked.