Migration Primer

AN INTRODUCTION TO SUB-SAHARAN MIGRATION TO EUROPE

Irregular Sub-Saharan migration to Europe isn’t a recent phenomenon. Often conflated with the mass migration of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in 2015-2016 as the “Mediterranean Migrant Crisis”, trans-Mediterranean Sub-Saharan migration to Europe has been occurring for over two decades and has been thoroughly underreported and misrepresented in mainstream media coverage.

Mainstream coverage of migration is mainly framed through Western optics and focuses on costs and stress to Europe. As Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax, Co-Founder and former Co-Director of the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs (CEILA) at Queen Mary University of London puts it, they are portrayed as a source of “potential social, political and economic disruption on living conditions, welfare and security in the host countries”. Migrant voices rarely participate in the discourse itself, yet are often cited to reinforce the existing narrative instead of contributing or transforming it.

Largely absent are stories about the root causes of migration, the unimaginably dangerous journeys leading to the Mediterranean and the challenges that migrants and refugees face upon arrival in Europe.

The causes and factors leading to Sub-Saharan migration to Europe are far too numerous and complex to describe here succinctly; each country of origin has its history, various cultures, systems of government, geopolitical relations and challenges. However, push-factors can broadly be broken down into reasons of safety, precarity, and wellbeing. Reasons of safety include conflict (war, civil war, regional conflicts), state violence (often seen in dictatorships or military regimes), and non-state violence – such as gang violence, ethnic violence, extremism, and terrorism. Reasons of precarity include political instability and corruption, economic instability (unemployment, widespread poverty), and environmental factors – such as climate change. Wellbeing includes all non-systemic individual-level reasons, such as personal safety, education, and others.

In all cases, Sub-Saharan migrants leave their home countries due to a complex set of interacting factors; no one leaves for a single reason, and each person has their own. What they have in common is their search for a better, more stable and sustainable life.

Migration routes

Because of restrictive migration policies, Sub-Saharan migrants are most often smuggled through networks into North Africa and then onto Europe. They have to pay thousands of dollars to smugglers to travel dangerous routes where they face ever-changing obstacles. Journeys are non-linear, as they often do not go as planned, must adapt to external forces, and change intended destinations several times as they progress. As a result, journeys to Europe can last anywhere between a few months to several years. Many migrants don’t even begin their journeys with the intention of going to Europe, but simply to leave their home country to find stability elsewhere, as internal migration flows within Africa dwarf international migration to Europe.

Regardless of the route, trans-Saharan journeys are brutal, violent, and deadly. Inestimable numbers of migrants die in the desert every year due to inhumane treatment at smugglers’ hands, attacks by militant groups, or simply happenstance. For days, migrants are crowded into the back of Hilux pickup trucks, without shade and little food or water. If one has the misfortune of falling off, they’re most often left to die.

North Africa – and especially Algeria and Libya – has become a particularly dangerous region for migrants in recent years. Many must spend months or years there earning money to continue their journeys, during which they are routinely oppressed, exploited, imprisoned, brutalized, ransomed, enslaved and often killed. Migrants must then resort to trans-Mediterranean smugglers that tow them in unsafe and dangerously overcrowded boats  -usually large, single-chamber inflatable rafts prone to sinking – into international waters where they hope to be rescued by European ships.

And sadly, these crossings are by far the most widely mediated portion of journeys to Europe because they are desperate, dramatic and dangerous. Poor weather conditions, engine failure, or the rupture of a boat’s delicate air chamber can all lead to the deaths of hundreds. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 19,000 migrants have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since 2013. After crossings lasting anywhere between 6 hours and seven days, surviving migrant vessels are rescued by Italian authorities – like the Italian Coast Guard, Navy or Guardia di Finanza – Search and Rescue NGOs – such as Sea Watch, Sea-Eye, SOS Méditerranée and Open Arms –  European border control (FRONTEX) or private shipping or fishing vessels and brought to Italy for care, processing, and reception.

Life in Europe

According to the United Nations, over 4.3 million Sub-Saharan African migrants lived in Europe as of 2019. Yet, their lives and the challenges they face are mostly absent from mainstream media coverage.

As a result of European Asylum Law, the principal countries of first arrival – namely Greece, Italy, and Spain – are responsible for the reception and processing of most irregular migrants, putting their asylum and reception systems under incredible pressure. Upon arriving in Europe, migrants face an often long asylum process whereby they must wait for results – often with limited resources or assistance – in the country where they applied.

As they remain in limbo– sometimes for years – they are wards of the state, unable to emancipate themselves, begin building new lives or move on to their intended destinations. Many become a shadow population, living in informal settlements and illegally working under dangerous and exploitative conditions. And with far-right nationalist movements with anti-migrant platforms being on the rise in Europe, migrants find themselves facing xenophobia, discrimination, and exploitation.

Their voices and stories untold in mainstream media.