Migrant journeys on land in Africa are twice as dangerous as the Mediterranean crossing, according to a major new report based on over 31,000 interviews. The report calls for greater protection for migrants who face huge risks along routes to Europe.
A growing number of migrants fleeing countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan as well as people leaving Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Guinea are taking dangerous routes through the Sahara in an attempt to reach the Mediterranean coast.
During these land journeys, many are subjected to enslavement, rape, kidnapping for ransom, organ removal and other abuses, according to a new report by the UN agencies for refugees and migration, and the Mixed Migration Center, entitled 'On This Journey, No One Cares if You Live or Die'.
"Refugees and migrants are increasingly traversing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labor and sexual exploitation are rife," according to a summary of the report released Friday (July 5).
Many also die before reaching the Mediterranean coast, a fact much less documented than the tragic loss of life on the Mediterranean crossing itself. While records show that 1,180 migrants died while crossing the Sahara Desert during the period from January 2020 to May 2024, the authors of the report estimate that the actual number is far higher.
Also read: Death and atrocities constant companions for migrants on African land routes, report
Deaths on land routes
The new report, which comes four years after the publication of volume 1 of the study, draws on interviews with more than 31,000 people.
"Unfortunately … the findings of the first report are reconfirmed and in some places, surpassed. As the data suggest, the risks and the list of unimaginable horrors people face in some countries along the route have not disappeared, on the contrary," it states.
While new conflicts in the Sahel and Sudan as well as drought and flooding in the East and Horn of Africa have led to even greater numbers of displaced people, protection remains lacking and, in some cases, has even deteriorated, the authors say.
Yet smugglers and traffickers continue to play down the increased risks. As one young Somali refugee is quoted in the report as saying: "[The smugglers] lie to the youth. They have workers everywhere and make tahriib [the journey to Europe] look easy […], but you will wake up when you face the dangers."
Other survivors spoke of the tactics used by some smugglers, including dumping sick people off pickup trucks ferrying them across the desert, or not going back to retrieve others who fall off.
"Everyone that has crossed the Sahara can tell you of people they know who died in the desert, whereas you interview people in [the Italian island] Lampedusa: Not that many people will tell you about people they know who died at sea," UN special envoy Vincent Cochetel said.
The aim of the report is to highlight the risks to migrants on land routes that lead to the Mediterranean, which was crossed by more than 72,000 people in the first half of 2024. During that period, the number known to have died or gone missing stands at 785, with the true figure believed to be higher. Last year, according to the IOM, more than 3,100 people died on the Mediterranean route. The organization says this is the most dangerous maritime migration route worldwide.
There are no comprehensive records of the number of people on the move to North Africa. But there is no doubt that the number is growing: in Tunisia – a main transit country for migrants trying to reach Europe – the report says the number of refugees and asylum seekers more than tripled between 2020 and 2023.
In Libya, another major destination for migrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean, authorities discovered a mass grave in March this year in the deserts in the western part of the country which contained the bodies of at least 65 migrants.
Also read: 'Unimaginable horrors' on migration routes to Europe, UN report
Abuses include organ removal
As well as the dangers of dying in the desert, those who travel to Tunisia or Libya also face greater risks of sexual violence and kidnapping compared with 2020. The most dangerous countries, according to respondents, were Algeria, Libya and Ethiopia.
In addition to rape and kidnappings, the report documents hundreds of cases of organ removals. In some cases migrants agree to such removals as a way to earn money, said Cochetel. "But most of the time, people are drugged and the organ is removed without their consent: they wake up, and a kidney is missing," he said.
Such abuses are a "stain on our collective conscience," the authors conclude. They warn that, despite having committed to international agreements such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, states have slipped into a "dangerous sense of resignation."
The report calls for concrete action to address the reasons for irregular migration as well as to create safe routes that would reduce migrants’ suffering.
"Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants … told their stories on which this report is based," the organizations say. "Accordingly, we will no longer be able to say that we did not know about the extreme and unacceptable forms of violence they face."