The escape routes from Africa to Europe are tight. Now the tractor to offer new routes from Africa by plane half way around the world: more and more African migrants are stranded in Mexico. Your destination: United States of America.
At the beginning of July in Mexico were reported by authorities, the number of African migrants have in the country tripled. According to official figures, there are around 1900, the majority of them come from the crisis countries are Cameroon and democratic Republic of the Congo. Your destination: United States of America.
Also from Uganda, will now be funneled numerous Africans by plane half way around the world. The 23-year-old Eritrean, sitting with sunglasses in a garden restaurant in the capital, Kampala, might soon belong to it. For security reasons, he does not want to give his name. He fled in the last September, from the brutal military service in Eritrea, he said. The means according to human rights organizations, often years of forced labor. “In Eritrea soon something changes, I don’t believe that, on the contrary,” he says. There is no more hope.
The classic routes are tight
At the time of his escape, the political situation came to meet him. After two Wars and a decades-long conflict in Eritrea and Ethiopia was concluded in July 2018, a peace Treaty. So far the heavily armed border between the two neighbouring countries was opened in September. The young Eritreans fled by foot to Ethiopia. But the refugee camps were hopelessly overcrowded, he complains.
The classic flight routes to Europe are often tight
He listened to the tractors. So far, most of the Eritreans about Ethiopia or the Sudan, fled through the desert to the Libyan coast. From there, they risked the dangerous Passage across the Mediterranean sea. This Route is now a quasi-dense, explains Zecarias Gerrima, Vice-Director of the Eritrean non-governmental organization “Africa monitor”, based in Uganda. “The Sudanese detained Eritreans and deport them,” says Gerrima. Sudan’s border guards would want to prove to the European Union, they will close the migration routes, so Gerrima. They knew very well that it is for the Eritreans not safe to return. “You send them to the death”, so Gerrima.
Since 2015, more than a Million refugees to Europe, the EU has concluded with numerous countries along the traditional escape routes agreement. In the framework of the “Better Migration Management”project of the EU, for example, Sudan have been trained of border guards to control the borders better. Critics say The EU has set the African governments as a bouncer.
A year-long Odyssey
The has works. In the EU, significantly fewer refugees to come now. 2018 14.910 Eritreans were in the EU, an initial request for asylum 2016 it were with 33.370 more than twice as many. However, fewer people from Eritrea to flee than in the past – on the contrary, in Uganda Alone have arrived since 2018 of up to 200,000 refugees from Eritrea. As the 23-Year-old most of the tractors have been transported by Bus through Kenya to Uganda. Tractor for around 1500 US dollars.
From here, it is more about new ways, reported Gerrima. The Eritreans conducts research about the global movements of his countrymen, and with many of you on the long escape routes via WhatsApp and Facebook in contact. In recent times, he has to realize that the routes have shifted – now it no longer goes with the boat over the Mediterranean sea, but with the plane half way around the world.
Many now want to fly to North America: “from African airports, first to South America – for example, to Uruguay. From there, it goes with the car,” says Gerrima. Because they need to avoid controls that were many months on the road, sometimes even years.
A lucrative business
This Route is expensive, white Gerrima. Tractors, which were previously in the Sudan and Libya, have also become established in Uganda. Due to the rampant corruption in the immigration authorities, passports are easy to get. The world’s active Eritrean tugs networks, you can procure the necessary visas for the countries of South America. Up to $ 30,000 in travel costs.
Around 1900 Migrants from Africa to stay in Mexico
A good deal for the tractor. The money you invest in Restaurants, Hotels and supermarkets in Uganda, apparently unnoticed. “We suspect that our country is being used as a transit country,” says Moses Binoga, in Uganda, the immigration authority for the fight against smuggling and trafficking in human beings responsible. Exact notes he didn’t but.
The aim of the EU migration policy, it was originally, the Smuggling networks in Africa off. In vain, believes Zecarias Gerrima of the non-governmental organization “African monitor”: “This policy has made the tractor, only smarter.”