The 613 males had traveled from their native Niger to neighboring Libya, the place lots of them deliberate to succeed in Europe over the Mediterranean Sea, a journey 1000’s of individuals from sub-Saharan Africa endeavor to make yearly.
However late final month, the boys had been deported by Libyan authorities in one of many nation’s largest expulsions in years. The mass deportation is a part of a standard sample: North African governments, funded by the European Union to sort out migration, utilizing brutal techniques to dam sub-Saharan Africa migrants from heading to Europe.
The 613 males reached Niger’s closest city to the Libyan border on Jan. 3, matted and hungry, some barefoot and sick after months of detention and days of journey throughout the Sahara. Two of the boys died shortly after arriving in Niger.
“I lived by hell,” stated Salmana Issoufou, one of many males. Mr. Issoufou, 18, stated he had been crushed by Libyan jail guards with wires and weapons all through his eight-month detention.
As anti-migrant sentiment rises throughout Europe, from France to Germany to Hungary, the residents of sub-Saharan Africa making an attempt to succeed in the continent are being pushed again by North African governments in proportions unseen in years. The E.U. has signed bilateral agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Mauritania, that embrace monetary help to curb migrant flows.
The technique seems to be working: unlawful border crossings dropped sharply in 2024, in accordance with latest knowledge from the European Union’s border company, Frontex.
However rights teams say the strategies getting used to maintain sub-Saharan migrants from touring to Europe embrace well-documented human rights violations, corresponding to so-called desert dumps. Migrants have been deserted within the Sahara with out meals or water, or saved in North African prisons the place they face torture, sexual violence and hunger.
Since Tunisia struck a cope with the European Union in 2023, it has dumped greater than 12,000 individuals, together with kids and pregnant girls, into abandoned areas of Libya, in accordance with the United Nations. Final yr, the E.U. signed the same cope with Mauritania.
In Libya, the European Union has financed the nation’s coast guard, which has been accused of firing reside ammunition throughout interceptions at sea and of handing migrants over to violent militias.
An investigation by a consortium of stories retailers final yr confirmed that autos and intelligence supplied by E.U. nations have been utilized by North African safety forces to arrest migrants or transport them to abandon areas.
The 613 males who had been despatched again to Niger this month had been detained in Libya since no less than final fall, in accordance with regional officers in Niger, who escorted them from the border to Dirkou, a Nigerien city about 260 miles south of Libya.
Two males died in Dirkou, in accordance with Abba Tchéké, a social employee who assisted the boys there and who works for Alarm Telephone Sahara, a nonprofit that rescues stranded migrants within the desert.
The boys reached Agadez, the most important metropolis in Niger’s north and a main transit hub for migrants, final week. They had been exhausted and dehydrated, and a few had pores and skin lesions and damaged limbs. Half a dozen males who had been deported all stated in interviews with The New York Occasions that that they had been mistreated by the Libyan authorities.
Adamou Harouna, 36, stated jail guards had burned plastic on him whereas he was being held.
The mass deportation from Libya echoes comparable actions from Algeria, which shares a 580-mile-long border with Niger and final yr deported greater than 31,000 individuals, the best determine in years, in accordance with Alarm Telephone Sahara.
The Algerian authorities drop migrants on the border with Niger, forcing them to stroll for hours within the desert earlier than reaching the closest city. The migrants additionally face beatings and bodily violence in Algerian prisons. (The European Union doesn’t have a migration settlement with Algeria.)
Whereas expulsions from Libya to Niger have up to now been decrease than from Algeria, the latest mass deportation has raised issues a few potential improve. Final yr, tons of of African residents had been forcibly returned from Libya to Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia, in accordance with the United Nations.
In Africa, deported migrants are returned to their dwelling nations by the United Nations’ Worldwide Group for Migration. In Niger, the group transports individuals deserted in border areas again to Agadez and later to their dwelling nations on planes that depart a number of occasions every week.
For the Nigerien males, the group organized buses. Mr. Issoufou, 18, stated he would stay in Niger. Mr. Harouna stated he plans to journey again to Libya as quickly as attainable.
Ibrahim Manzo Diallo contributed reporting from Niamey, Niger, Saikou Jammeh from Dakar, Senegal, and Jenny Gross from London.