Migrants in Vulnerable Situations: Words to Describe Wounds
By: Iom - Un Migration
Tags: Migration, Humanitarian Aid, Africa, United Nations

An estimated 30,000 migrants in vulnerable situations were stranded in West and Central Africa in May, as COVID-19 began to spread in the region.

“Migrant in vulnerable situations” is a term often used, but is the meaning really understood? Why are they considered vulnerable? Why do they need immediate assistance?

Based on its unique field experience, IOM recognizes operational challenges and protection gaps in identifying, protecting and assisting migrants who are not entitled to international protection as refugees, stateless persons or victims of human trafficking, but who nonetheless require protection and assistance. In order to respond to this challenge, IOM has developed a Determinants of Migrant Vulnerability model, an innovative tool to holistically assess migrants’ vulnerabilities and capabilities. This approach looks beyond individuals. It analyses factors at the household/family, community and structural levels that contribute to vulnerability or, conversely, those that contribute to resilience, mitigate vulnerability, reduce harm and inform comprehensive and sustainable solutions. It offers a standard methodology for identifying migrants vulnerable to, or who have experienced, violence, exploitation or abuse.

“I spent 15 days stranded in the desert. I saw more than 800 graves during that time. When I arrived at the transit centre, I saw children recreating these gravesites with stones. I couldn’t even find it sad anymore — it was something beyond that. After what I experienced in Libya, I think there is a little bit of me that died,” recalls Ahmed, a Senegalese man staying at an IOM transit centre in Niger.

For the past three years, IOM has helped over 100,000 migrants return home through its European Union-funded Voluntary Return Programmes under the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.

Ahmed in a transit centre in Niger, awaits his return to Senegal. Photo: IOM Niger

Ahmed is one of them. He requested IOM’s assistance to return home to Senegal. Like him, many other migrants stranded along the migration routes, especially those trying to reach Libya and cross the Central Mediterranean, have voluntarily decided to return home after they went through harrowing experiences, with both mental and physical sequels for some. For them, it was not only the end of a journey but the end of a lifelong dream of better living conditions in Europe.

Thousands of Africans risk their lives crossing the desert and the sea to reach Europe, but even more stay within Africa to survive and succeed. According to data collected by IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix DTM) Unit, more than 95 per cent of the flows captured by Flow Monitoring Points (FMPs) in 2017 and 2018 were intra-regional or within the same country. But this intra-regional mobility does not come without risks.

In April, more than 1,700 Nigeriens working in gold mining sites were left stranded in Burkina Faso. This situation, partly due to COVID-19 border closures, was also caused by the precarious situation of migrants who would not have had the means to return home even if borders had been opened. Most of them left Diebougou, in the south of the country, to reach Ouagadougou, the capital, by foot.

The COVID-19 outbreak in West and Central Africa further weakened people who were already vulnerable and who have shown great resilience in coping with little or no assistance.

To avert a humanitarian disaster, in May, the European Union set up a EUR 3 million COVID-19 assistance fund under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative.

The Fund aims at helping stranded migrants in the region due to COVID-19 restrictions, in the form of food, shelter, medical care, psychosocial support or assisted voluntary return. Other specific activities including supporting the government efforts to prevent the spread of the disease have also been implemented.

Through the fund, over 5,000 stranded people benefitted from assistance in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, including more than 3,300 who were able to return home through humanitarian corridors.

“This fund is saving lives. Thanks to the flexibility of the Joint Initiative, many stranded migrants have been assisted. Most were living day to day, without shelter or protection and with no possibility to return to their homes,” says Marine Buckenham, Regional Protection Officer for West and Central Africa.

“This fund also allows us to support governments’ efforts in the region, who are very committed to preventing the spread of the virus and supporting the creation of humanitarian corridors, but may not have the means to implement necessary quarantine measures, for example,” she added.

Since its launch in 2016, the Joint Initiative has assisted at least 77,000 Sahel and Lake Chad nationals on the Central Mediterranean and Western Mediterranean route with voluntary return. It has enabled life-saving assistance to stranded migrants, some of whom were detained or rescued in the Sahara desert.

Upon return, migrants can benefit from reintegration assistance, including economic support to start anew. Photo: Mohamed DIabaté/IOM Côte d’Ivoire

IOM’s Return assistance is often combined with a socio-economic reintegration programme.

Once home, returnees have to start anew and need to cope with the psychological or physical consequences of their journey. Often excluded by their communities and riddled with debt, they need to regain their bearings to find their place in their community and manage to provide for themselves and their loved ones.

In the Sahel and Lake Chad regions, and over 86,000 were assisted after their return. Among them, nearly 68,000 who have received reintegration assistance, including economic support, counselling, mental health and psychosocial support, tailored to their needs and vulnerabilities to help them start anew upon return.

The COVID-19 outbreak has challenged this reintegration and many returnees’ businesses are plummeting.

To measure the impact of the pandemic on beneficiaries, IOM conducted in May a survey with 518 returnees in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria and Senegal. Eighty-nine per cent of those surveyed said their economic situation had deteriorated since the COVID-19 outbreak and 38 per cent said their businesses are very strongly impacted.

“For the time being, I have decided to close the two new points of sale, due to the lack of customers. I even considered closing the third one, but I have bills to pay and people to feed. But I don’t make enough money. We have been living off my savings for a few weeks now,” says Abdourahmane, a Guinean returnee who opened three mobile coffee shops in Conakry.

“It is one thing to assist stranded migrants with their voluntary return home. It is another to help them to

rebuild their lives upon return. There are different forms of vulnerability and different needs. IOM’s support is tailored to the different vulnerabilities of our beneficiaries to ensure their protection and sustainable reintegration,” says Marine Buckenham.

“COVID-19 was an unexpected event that disrupted our beneficiaries at different levels. It is also a lesson learned and reminds us to integrate different forms of risks, including natural disaster, in the design of our projects to enable us to protect as many people as possible and offer decent solutions to migrants,” she adds.

The Joint Initiative will start phasing out its activities at the end of this month (December 2020). An estimated 7,500 migrants are currently stranded in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Marutiania, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia, and eagerly awaiting their return.

What will happen to them when they return? How hard is it going to be for them to rebuild their lives?

Unlike many others, they will not benefit from the Joint Initiative’s helping hand to start anew, including to overcome the challenges of return and the trauma of their journey.

Also, what will happen to stranded migrants in North Africa and transit countries in the region? What will they do if they have no option to return, especially that most of them have no financial, logistical or administrative means to return home? Is the only option left to try and cross the desert and the Mediterranean at all costs?

IOM is concerned that without protection and assistance, more migrants will be vulnerable and at risk of falling in the hands of smugglers and traffickers who will push them to risk their lives.

On 14 December, IOM appealed for 100 million EUR to continue providing protection and assistance to vulnerable migrants from West and Central Africa along the Central and Western Mediterranean routes. These resources will allow for direct assistance and return and reintegration. This also includes life-saving search and rescue operations in the Sahara Desert as well as humanitarian assistance after disembarkation. It will also enhance migration governance and support the governance of migration data and awareness raising in main countries of origin.

“Over the past four years, the Joint Initiative has contributed to a dignified and orderly migration. Additional resources will help to ensure that this chain, built under the humanitarian and development nexus, will not be broken, and that all the efforts that have been made to safeguard the rights and dignity of migrants will not be in vain,” says Michele Bombassei, Programme Coordinator at IOM’s Regional Office for west and Central Africa.