Niger “Ground Zero”: Where Migrant Children Chase The Algerian Mirage
AGADEZ — In Niger, the Agadez region is home to a large number of migrants who often live in dangerous, unhealthy conditions and suffer from poor treatment.
The Algerian authorities regularly expel thousands of migrants to Niger, abandoning them at “Ground Zero,” about 15 kilometers from Assamaka, the first town in Niger on the Algerian border.
Among the waves of deportees are several hundred children, who, after being dropped on the border, are transferred to Agadez to be sent back to their countries of origin.
Before Agadez, these migrants spend days, or even weeks, in Arlit, a town in Niger near the Algerian border. Their journeys are often extraordinarily difficult, despite the efforts of the government and its partners.
Assamaka, the end and beginning of a long ordeal
Assamaka is a small town about 212 kilometers from Arlit, Niger. The town gives a glimmer of hope to migrants abandoned on the Algerian border. It is a place where they can hope to be rescued from the austere environment, where they face many dangers: thirst, hunger and even death.
Once they reach Assamaka, many migrants feel relieved and imagine the end of their ordeal. But for many, this is where a new ordeal begins, before they are transferred to Arlit and then Agadez.
Koné, 15, comes from Côte d’Ivoire.
“We were turned away from Algeria,” he says. “They left us 15 kilometers from Assamaka. We walked all the way to Assamaka. Once we got there, we spent a month, two weeks and three days there in the IOM (International Organization for Migration) camp. We were put on a big truck to go to Arlit. When we got to Arlit, we spent a month there. They put us on the bus again to come to Agadez today.”
Koné was horrified by the living conditions in Assamaka.
“Assamaka is not good,” he says. “There’s never cool water. You can’t clean yourself,” he laments. However, he says he’s glad to be in Agadez. “This is a big city. You can eat what you like and sleep when you like. And there’s water here and everything else,” he says.
The young Ivorian, who dropped out of school, wanted to join his older brother in Italy. His brother had sent him money to join him, as he was planning to enroll in an Italian school before finding work. He had to pass through many different places, including Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, to end up in Algeria and then Agadez in Niger.
Konaté, another 17-year-old Ivorian, is also one of the migrants who was turned away from Algeria. He also wanted to go to Italy. But unlike Koné, he has no brother or acquaintance there.
“In Assamaka, there’s no food, no water, no washing,” he says. “It’s not uncommon to go two weeks there without washing.” He had the same plan as Koné: he hoped to enroll in a school in Italy and then find work.
Konaté also felt that Algeria had no right to turn them away.
“We’re just passing through. We’re not here to stay [in Algeria],” he explains. Now, he says, he wants to return to Côte d’Ivoire to go back to school.
Unbearable life in Assamaka
Limamo, a young Senegalese man, said that he spent three weeks in Assamaka before being taken to Arlit and then Agadez. He says he saw migrants who had died in Assamaka from exhaustion. Abandoned at “Ground Zero,” Limamo and his friends walked the 15 kilometers to Assamaka, where he found living conditions incredibly difficult.
“Assamaka is not good. You can’t eat normally, you can’t sleep well. A lot of people have died in Assamaka. Migrants. Because they’re tired,” he says. “The Director of the IOM in Assamaka is no good.”
Distressed by these sad conditions, Limamo called on the authorities to return him and the other migrants to their respective countries.
Souleymane, a Gambian, is also one of the migrants who has been repatriated from Algeria and who recently arrived in Agadez.
He was in Algeria working on construction sites. When they were repatriated, Souleymane and his friends were beaten and stripped of their belongings in Algeria, he said. They arrived in Niger with nothing, he adds. He says that more than a thousand people came to Assamaka, where they spent three weeks.
“In Assamaka, people don’t get enough to eat: it’s one dish for 12 people,” he says.
How will these child migrants be helped once they arrive in Agadez?
In Agadez, all these migrants are housed and cared for in transit centers run by humanitarian organizations or by the Regional Department for the Promotion of Women and the Protection of Children.
According to the head of the UNHCRAgadez office, Mahamad Nour
Abdoulaye, children receive special attention.
“In our office, we have unaccompanied and separated children,” he says. “We are particularly focused on these children, of whom there are around 19 here in the Agadez region, under our protection.”
According to Abdoulaye, most of the children in the UNHCR office in Agadez are Sudanese, aged between 8 and 17. There is also a minority of children from other countries.
On July 10, 2023, more than 600 children were being cared for in the UNHCR humanitarian center and transit camp, according to UNHCR figures.
A few years ago, the UNHCR, in collaboration with UNICEF, opened a “special protection hut” for unaccompanied and separated children. According to him, “these children are looked after and receive all the attention they need.”
Multisectoral assistance
“A few days ago, we met with the DRPE (Regional Child Protection Department) so that some of these children, i.e. children under the age of thirteen, could be relocated to the DRPE’s transit and orientation centers,” explains Abdoulaye. “There are about six of them and the others have all been relocated to the humanitarian center in a hut suitable for them.”
According to Abdoulaye, these children are being well looked-after.
“As far as food is concerned, they receive hot meals three times a day, just like the other refugees,” he says. “In terms of refugee determination, we are working with the government to pay particular attention to determining the status of children. So they have access to health care, like other children. But also to education. They benefit from education in state schools.”
“A lot of people have died in Assamaka. Migrants. Because they’re tired. ”
Abdoulaye explained that the UNHCR office, assisted by its partners in this field, notably UNICEF and the DRPE, is monitoring the children in these establishments.
Assistance for Nigerien children
In Agadez, the Department for the Promotion of Women and the Protection of Children has been involved in migration issues since 2014, through the transit and orientation center (CTO) set up in 2014 with the first operations to turn back Niger migrants living illegally in Algeria.
Souleymane Issaka, the Divisional Officer in charge of child protection at the Agadez Regional Directorate for the Promotion of Women and the Protection of Children said that the directorate also started taking in unaccompanied children and child victims of trafficking in 2014.
“We offer them a number of services,” he adds. “The first of these is accommodation at our center, which has a capacity of 50 beds, but can be extended to more if necessary. Apart from that, there is also what we call medical screening, which means that all the children we take in benefit from health assistance. If they need to be hospitalized or referred to a more specialized health center for treatment, we do so. And, of course, there’s food and non-food kits.”
“Besides this,” he continues, “there is also what we call the opening of protection files.” According to him, all these children who are on the migration route and who are also victims of trafficking have a history, whether in their villages of origin or throughout the migration route. “There is a certain history that we try to retrace through life stories. And these life stories are told through specialized interviews. And all this information ultimately ends up in what we call protection files,” he explains. “This is so that our colleagues to whom we refer or transfer these files can continue to provide care. And these cases specifically concern unaccompanied and separated children,” he adds.
Issaka points out that this care is provided in accordance with all procedures, in particular standard
professional procedures, and in line with the international conventions to which Niger has subscribed. The divisional officer also points out that several players are involved.
“The most important point is to return children to their families,” he explains. “All the children who pass through the center are also reported to the juvenile judge’s chambers, who issues a return to family order.”
How many?
The transit and orientation center for children created in 2014 was reestablished in 2020 with technical and financial support from UNICEF. The center is located within the Department for the Promotion of Women and the Protection of Children in the Toudou district. According to Issaka, the center sees a large number of children every year.
“In 2022, for example, we took in 1,305 boys and 980 girls,” he says. “From January 2023 to June 2023, we took in 588 children in migration situations. Of these 588 children, 397 were boys and 191 girls. Of these 588, 81 were victims of trafficking and were referred to us by the public prosecutor’s office.”
According to Issaka, when trafficked children are identified by the gendarmerie or police juvenile unit, the children and the traffickers are transferred to the public prosecutor’s office. “And it is the public prosecutor, through the social service or the juvenile judge, who makes them available to us so that we can have them returned home,” he says.
Concerns and difficulties
Despite the efforts of the Agadez Regional Department for the Promotion of Women and the Protection of Children to aid migrant children, a number of difficulties are hampering the process of caring for them.
“The main challenges we face are the lack of staff,” says Issaka. “There are only four permanent staff at management level. All our social workers, i.e. our colleagues who go out into the field to identify children in migration situations, are paid from UNICEF funds. They are service providers. So today, if this support is cut off by the partner, it’s going to be a real problem in terms of identifying and caring for all these children in migration situations.”
Another problem is the high number of migrant children in the commune of Agadez.
“All these children may be planning to go on to Algeria, but there are thousands of them in the commune of Agadez. And unfortunately, these children are also in a situation that exposes them to a lot of danger,” Issaka warns. “There are not many precise answers as to how to deal with these children who are in a situation of internal migration.”
Given this state of affairs, he calls on partners to be “consistent” in funding the department’s activities, and also “to continue this support, be it logistical, financial or even technical.” He argues that the government is doing its best to provide an adequate response to the migration issue, but argues that more staff need to be hired.
“Today, if the partners cut funding for the social workers who are going out and actively detecting and identifying all these children, this is going to be a huge detriment in terms of responding to all the child protection issues,” he adds.