African Exodus: The Unsavoury Migration through The Mediterranean

With thousands of young Africans getting drown and perishing yearly enroute the Mediterranean Sea, to Europe, Hilary Damissah, a Public Affairs Analyst, writes in this piece describing the harrowing journey as nothing short of a travesty

By 2024 Patience Oyewole, a dark elegant, beautiful young girl with a promising future would have been 43 years old, but fate played a twist on her when she decided to embark on the journey of no return as a teenager. The true picture of her death remains a mystery as no one ever fathomed the exact nature, place and time of her death. She reportedly went missing without traces in her bid to conquer both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. Her now aged mother of about 70 years old still writhes in the agony of her demise. “Ehmm…my son, what can we do about it, I have never managed to recover from the pains of the irreparable loss of a beloved daughter no matter how long it has taken” she said as she sighed with tearful eyes and a fading tone. It has been over 25 years after the vivacious Patience reportedly died enroute her quest to the perceived promise land in Europe all in search of a better life across the frightening transatlantic blue waters separating North Africa from Europe and some stretch to the Middle-East.

Another voyager, Sylvanus Alabi, a National Diploma holder was so persuaded as it was becoming the trend among a number of disillusioned young people that life anywhere outside Nigeria especially in the shores of Europe was a far better option than the reality of survival in Nigeria irrespective of whatever uncertainties the prospect may present. He knew no one, never bothered to understand the geography, history of improper migration nor the enormity of the unfolding travelogue that lay ahead of him. “Bross, I just want to leave Nigeria” he told me repeatedly. I had questioned his preferred destination in Europe but his answers were in no lucid or particular destination or city.

Without a structured traveling plan, he set out from Port Harcourt, South-South Nigeria and shuttled between buses down to Auchi, Edo State. Alas! His voyage to the unknown began in quest of livelihood outside the shores of mother Africa.

He waited late into the wee hours of the cold night for any of the articulated vehicles that often transited around Aviele town and Auchi, that transport goods from the southern part of the country to the north. He journeyed on through Niger Republic, with better forgotten agonizing experiences at some literary “Stations of the Cross” like that of Agadez, a small migrant transit town where none French speakers suffer a great deal of exploitation. Thereafter, the excruciating chapter in Libya where he fell into the hands of Libyan authorities who visited on him a litany of dehumanizing abuses, physical and mental torture, arbitrary detention and unimaginable exploitation. A number of Libyan non-state actors extort money through the use of agents from Migrants in their quest for access to boats to help them cross the Mediterranean Sea which are often elusive making the illegal journey men to embark on the crossing of the terrifying Sea on floating balloons despite the looming catastrophic undertaking.

A few times his tormentors, in their detention camps will oblige him the privilege of a phone call under tortuous conditions demanding for money from his relatives back home in Nigeria with treat of extermination if requested out terms were not meant within specified period. When he was finally let off to the Libyan coast, he was sandwiched into a balloon like a man heading to “Golgotha” where some of his co-travellers fell off into the bowels of the sea but his thin faith clung on with tenacity amidst the vicissitudes and emptiness of an anticipated modern life and the reality which starred him in the face but he was lucky to sail ashore to the coast of Italy. However, he has not managed to overcome the harrowing and nightmarish experience which he always never wish to recount.

The story of famed Cameroonian Mix Martial Arts fighter Francis Ngannou is a well-documented one. According to an exclusive interview with the 6ft plus hard hitting MMA puncher, ESPN in a publication entitled; Francis Ngannou –“Miraculous Journey to UFC Stardom” detailed the harrowing experiences of Ngannou.

On April 3, 2012, 25-year-old Francis Ngannou said goodbye to his family and set out to pursue a new life albeit in the most unpredictable manner. Ngannou traversed three continents and navigated life-threatening circumstances to grab hold of his dreams.
The journey was carved into his psyche: first Morocco, then the treacherous eight-mile passage across the narrowest body of water separating Africa and Europe. It took Ngannou three weeks to travel 3,000 miles to Morocco, after crossing Niger, Algeria, then to Nador, the city that borders between Morocco and Spain. His fairy tale adventure was life-threatening, he tried to cross the border by climbing over the barbed wire or navigating the incubator of western civilization – the Mediterranean Sea in a small inflatable rubber boat even without the most amateurish swimming skills.

There was an underground network of people who would help, for a fee, and he spent his meager funds accordingly. He paid for car rides and walked hundreds of miles. He was welcome in some countries and not in others. Desert, forest, mountains — the earth became an opponent to outwit and conquer.

“Everywhere that the sun sets is your home at that moment,” he says.
In Morocco, he did his best to live in the shadows. His first three attempt at crossing into Spain failed, and each resulted in him being dropped off in Western Sahara by Moroccan police without food or water. Then the fourth attempt failed, and then the fifth, and then the sixth. Each time a raft pushed off from the shore, the adrenaline rush of possibility overcame the fear of the endless black sea. He couldn’t feel anything until he got caught, and then he felt everything: the empty stomach, the wet, the cold, the prospect of starting over. The hope, so powerful just minutes before, left his body like a fever breaking.

These and many other terrifying stories of young Africans capture the uncertainties, perilous navigation and adventure to migrate with the hope of a better life to Europe across the intercontinental sea that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to Asia on the east and separates Europe from Africa bordering over 20 countries including; Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Croatia, Malta, Albania among others in Europe, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia in Africa, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria in the Middle-East.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project, 2024, within the last decade about 28,000 people have been documented dead or missing in their efforts at migrating through the Mediterranean Sea. In just 2023, over 3,105 migrants and refugees were reportedly dead or missing, with 61% of deaths directing in the bowels of the Mediterranean Sea.

Africa is said to be high on the figures accounting for more than 14,500 deaths many of which occurred in transit on the desert and coastal routes from West Africa through to the North African nations and farther more to the Mediterranean corridors. Reportedly, the Central Mediterranean route from North Africa especially Libya due to its volatile social-political nature and the aftermath of years of political instability and Italian peninsular accounts for the majority of deaths and disappearances during migration, claiming the lives of more than 23,000 people between 2014 and March 2024 though the exact number of death remains uncertain as several incidents are undocumented or go unreported.

The dangerous journey across the Sahara desert can best be described as a suicide mission due to its vulnerable nature. The topography is naturally a cumbersome one with extreme temperatures, the region is hugely unstructured and ungoverned with high level of bandits and criminal elements who often feed on the poor but desperate migrants who in most cases have little or no food or source of drinkable water.
According to some recent media reports which quoted the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the United Nations agency dealing with migration, the alarming rate of the Japa syndrome in Africa’s most populous nation has seen to an astronomical increase in the number of Nigerians repatriated from 10 countries in the last 23 months with figures put at 11,852 persons from January 2023 to November 2024.
IOM is the leading intergovernmental body that focuses on migration with the primary objective of ensuring the dignity of human values and benefits of migrants and society. The organisation helps migrants the world over in developing effective ways to the changing dynamics of migration and as such is a strategic voice on migration issues and policies globally.

The IOM report indicates that 4,760 migrants were assisted in returning to Nigeria in 2023, while 7,092 migrants have received assistance so far in 2024. The figures further show that 5,727 were females accounting for 48 percent while 6,125 were male representing 52 per cent of the figures.

A further examination of the figures reveals that 140 of them were unaccompanied minors and 1, 550 were victims of illicit human trafficking. A careful analysis of the data also shows that the top 10 host migrant countries Nigerians were repatriated from were Libya (5,494), Niger (3,490), Mali (702), Chad (492), Sudan (271), Morocco (269), Tunisia (187), Algeria (148), Germany (133), and Cote d’Ivoire (133).
The Punch news reports that the top states of origin of the migrants are Kano, Lagos, Edo, Ogun, Ondo, Yobe, Delta, Oyo, and Kaduna States while the top States of reintegration are Kano, Lagos, Edo, Ogun, Kaduna, Oyo, Ondo, Delta, Yobe and Borno. The report revealed that the primary reasons for departure are for better social-economic opportunities (97 per cent), and bad family situation (2 per cent).

Though Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima, while speaking at the 10th Annual Migration dialogue in Abuja recently described migration as an inevitable global phenomenon and emphasized the need for mutual respect among nations on the issue, he was optimistic about Nigeria’s resilience and ability to overcome its challenges asserting that the country’s status as black powerhouse remains indisputable.

However, with the current economic crises biting harder on Nigerians, the persistent insecurity challenges in both the North West and North Eastern States, and the increasing political instability with the recent incursion of military juntas in some of the francophone African nations especially, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, there may be no abating the worrisome trend of the “African Exodus and the Unsavoury Migration through the Mediterranean” sooner than later.