Africa: the trauma of migrants who crossed the Sahara
Migrants in Khoms, Libya, May 30, 2020 (illustrative image).
REUTERS / Ayman Sahely
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow |
Sabine Cessou Follow
6 min
Candidates for migration to Europe, from the South of the Sahara, go through two crossings: that of the Sahara, then that of the Mediterranean.
Many go through hell in Libya, while others find themselves stranded in Morocco.
Everyone has to deal with the aftermath of a difficult journey.
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“
The saddest case we have encountered concerns a woman from Yaoundé, in her thirties.
She was held hostage and made a slave in Libya, where she gave birth to a child.
Her captors called her family to tell her to send money, and they shot and killed her one year old baby in front of her while she was being filmed
.
This terrible story is told by Richard Danziger, former regional director of the office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in West and Central Africa, now stationed in Somalia.
The extreme violence suffered by this anonymous Cameroonian, who left Libya thanks to a joint initiative between the European Union and IOM for the protection and reintegration of migrants, caused her to start drinking and listening. constantly playing music, because it can't stand noise.
“
She lives with an aunt in Yaoundé, where she is followed,”
explains Richard Danziger.
Thousands of traumatized migrants return home with different stresses - ashamed to come back empty-handed, feeling of failure, depression.
Many have seen others die
”.
Between 2017 and 2019, IOM provided “
psychosocial
”
support
to more than 6,000 returnees in 26 countries in West and Central Africa.
In Senegal, this support and mental health care are provided in regions where returns are the most numerous, such as Tambacounda, Kolda, Seidhou and Ziguinchor.
The despair and shame of the returnees
The feeling of failure and shame, in addition to the ostracism to which they are subjected in their communities, pushes to suicide some of those repatriated and followed by IOM.
“
On their return, some migrants may be confronted with negative psychological reactions such as shame and guilt, the feeling of having failed, hopelessness, lack of self-esteem, frustration or anger
, explains Gaia Quaranta, psychologist for the
Regional Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for West and Central Africa
based in Dakar.
It is important to make them understand that these reactions are normal, in difficult situations like the Libyan crisis
”.
One of IOM's priorities is to increase budgets for long-term psychological support in health services.
This battle is far from won, given the low health spending devoted to mental health in general, and the cultural taboos that may prevail in particular, such care being considered as reserved for "madmen", a status that refuse people who need support.
Male rape and organ trafficking in Libya
Senegal has about 30 psychiatrists for nearly 16 million inhabitants, while the offer of conventional psychiatric care is limited to two services in hospitals in Yaoundé and Douala, Cameroon.
However, the traumas of migrants who have attempted the route across the Sahara are numerous.
They range from thirst to sunstroke, including racketeering from unscrupulous smugglers, and rapes suffered by migrant women.
The horrors suffered during the stage in Libya are often overlooked, such as the rapes, suffered by women and men.
During the release in 2018 of her documentary,
Libya, anatomy of a crime
, Cécile Allegra revealed that rapes are committed almost systematically in migrant detention centers, both official and clandestine.
As for
organ trafficking
, a lucrative trade that began in Italy and Egypt by touching migrants without their knowledge, it has also plagued Libya.
Some end up with stitches and a missing kidney after being asleep.
The road through the desert, an "iniatic rite"
In Morocco, where many migrants from West and Central Africa
sometimes find themselves stranded
after a long journey through the desert, the traumas are no less numerous.
"
As it becomes more difficult to move around, bypassing controls makes the various migrations much more dangerous and deadly
", explains Mehdi Alioua, Moroccan sociologist and professor at the international university of Rabat.
In Saharo-Sahelian Africa, notes this specialist in migration, it is the roads that are monitored, much more than the borders, because of the immensity of the desert.
"
Control is everywhere, all along the road, on bridges and especially at the entry and exit of towns, in Mali and Niger
".
What about the desert?
“
The convoys, to bypass the increasingly severe controls, make long and very dangerous detours, as well as stops in the middle of nowhere.
For people from sub-Saharan Africa who cross these desert immensities, without a living soul, without understanding the language of the Toubous or Tuareg carriers, without information, it is extremely distressing.
All the more so since there are rogue escorts, police bandits, rapes and thieves
”.
For some 340 people interviewed by Mehdi Alioua, after having crossed the Sahara without too many problems, “
the ordeal is described as very hard and they take a kind of pride in it.
It has even become a sort of iniatic rite.
Everyone explained to me that they haven't been the same since, that they had experienced a kind of rebirth.
Of course, the ordeal does not end there, the violence can continue afterwards, but having crossed the Sahara is often having learned to survive together
”.
For those who have experienced violence, on the other hand, solidarity cannot be enough to overcome all trauma.
► (Re) listen: The psychological suffering of migrants
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