According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the 17 men and 1 woman are believed to have lost their way in a sandstorm after leaving Arlit which is a desert town.
Chief of IOM Niger mission said: “They succumbed after having lost their route from Arlit, Niger to Algeria due to a sand storm,”
“And then the heat and lack of water did the rest.”
The migrant were said to be from Niger, Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, the Central African Republic, Liberia, and Guinea, with one reportedly from Algeria.
Although it was thought that they had died on June 3, their bodies were not found until a week later.
The tragedy emphasized the gory side of migration through illegal means and has been a grave concern to the international community. The spate of migration has grown rapidly especially the waters between Libya and Italy.
The 18 bodies “highlights a feared but hitherto little-known danger too many migrants face long before they risk their lives at sea,” IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said in a statement.
“The Sahara may be as deadly as the Mediterranean for this wave. All too tragically many of these deaths go unreported.”
While there are rescue missions monitoring the waters, there is no rescue mission on the desert yet thereby reducing the chances of being saved.
According to IOM, 100,000 people are still likely to attempt crossing the desert which is the same number estimated to die there annually.
“We don’t think this is an isolated case but without a systematic collection of information or without a rescue operation we will never know how many migrants could possibly be missing,” Loprete said.
This reflected another chapter of the horrific danger that migrants face in what is possibly a quest for greener pasture.
No comments:
Post a Comment