By Umaru Fofana
At least 124 Sierra Leoneans are stranded at the fringes of the Sahara desert town of Agadez, in Niger, after their failed bid to make it to Europe.
A spokesman for the stranded migrants, Osman Koroma, told Politico that they’re all men who left home between six months and three years ago but were turned back when some of them reached Algeria and others Libya.
He said they were taken to the Algerian border with Niger from where they trekked to the desert town of Assamaka in northern Niger.
“After we were dropped off we walked a very long distance to Assamaka where IOM [International Office for Migration] staff patrolling the area rescued us and gave us food and shelter”.
Speaking from Agadez with sheep bleating and cows mooing in the background, Koroma said 36 of them were at the Camp 2 transit centre while the rest were 15 kilometres away in a place called Arlit. They live in mud houses in an area that is more of a cattle ranch.
He said they’d been there for three months and complained about the harsh weather condition they were faced with.
“IOM are trying their best but the weather is too harsh and as a result some of us regularly bleed through the nose”, Koroma said.
The 14th century city of Agadez is a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, while many migrants have perished around Assamaka. But Koroma said he and his compatriots were all well, stressing that no one had suffered from the coronavirus.
“We are all healthy” he said, and appealed to the Government of Sierra Leone to work with IOM and facilitate their repatriation.
He however said that some of his colleagues were without a valid passport.
“Majority of us do not have a passport” he said, adding: “We lost a lot of our belongings due to attacks by armed gangs wreaking havoc in these desert fields”. He said the attackers would sometimes tear up their passports.
A spokesman for IOM in Niger, Monica Chiriac told Politico that there were in fact 136 Sierra Leoneans in their transit centre in Niger with “79 in the centre in Agadez alone”.
We could not get the minister of foreign affairs to know whether there was anything the Sierra Leone government could or would do to work with IOM in bringing back their stranded citizens. We will bring that to you whenever we get it.
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