{"id":88837,"date":"2024-07-06T04:53:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T04:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/06\/violence-rape-thirst-even-organ-theft-migrants-face-lethal-risks-in-africa\/"},"modified":"2024-07-06T04:53:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T04:53:07","slug":"violence-rape-thirst-even-organ-theft-migrants-face-lethal-risks-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/06\/violence-rape-thirst-even-organ-theft-migrants-face-lethal-risks-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence, Rape, Thirst, Even Organ Theft: Migrants Face Lethal Risks in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/06\/multimedia\/06migrants-sahara-1-ljkf\/06migrants-sahara-1-ljkf-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Violence, Rape, Thirst, Even Organ Theft: Migrants Face Lethal Risks in Africa\" title=\"Violence, Rape, Thirst, Even Organ Theft: Migrants Face Lethal Risks in Africa\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If not left to die of dehydration or illness, migrants on the dangerous land routes through northern Africa toward the Mediterranean and Europe risk rape, torture, sex trafficking and even organ theft, according to a new report produced in part by the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Migrant deaths on the Mediterranean have drawn global attention over the past decade, but \u201cthe number of those who die in the desert may well be at least double\u201d those, said the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/publications.iom.int\/books\/journey-no-one-cares-if-you-live-or-die\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> released Friday by two United Nations agencies and the Mixed Migration Centre, a non-governmental research group based in Denmark.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Based on interviews with more than 31,000 migrants all along their routes, from 2020 to 2023, the report documents the brutality suffered by the growing number of people from dozens of countries who try to make their way across the Sahel and the Sahara, fleeing war, environmental degradation and poverty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Physical violence apart from sexual violence, which the report counted separately, was the risk most often identified by migrants. Dangers along the routes include arbitrary detention \u2014 often to extort money from their families \u2014 and trafficking for labor, sex or criminal activity. The migrants told of torture and even organ harvesting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The violence often came at the hands of organized criminal gangs and militias, and in particular from the traffickers paid to shepherd people to Europe. Traffickers routinely lie to migrants about the perils they will face, demand more money from them once they are far from home, and provide little in the way of food, water and other provisions along the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI believed all the accidents happen at sea,\u201d Teklebrhan Tefamariam Tekle, an Eritrean refugee now in Sweden, told an interviewer. \u201cThe accidents are back there in the Sahara. It is full of Eritrean bodies. There you will find bones and skulls of dead people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Others told of migrants and traffickers simply abandoning those who collapsed of thirst or injury along the route. \u201cYou just keep going,\u201d said one man, identified as Abraham. \u201cYou never look back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">About one-third of the adults interviewed are women, who face particular dangers. An estimated 90 percent of women and girls traveling along the Mediterranean route were raped, according to one <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unwomen.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Headquarters\/Attachments\/Sections\/Library\/Publications\/2021\/Policy-brief-From-evidence-to-action-Tackling-GBV-against-migrant-women-and-girls-en.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">2020 U.N. study,<\/a> and some have been forced into sex work to pay for their journey. There are reports of women forced to marry kidnappers and birth their children and others of women having to pay sexual favors for the safe passage of a group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe stories are truly horrific,\u201d said Judith Sunderland, who was not involved in producing the report, but as the associate director for Human Rights Watch\u2019s Europe and Central Asia division has interviewed hundreds of people who survived the journey to Europe. The accounts in the report, she said, sounded tragically similar to those she heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou just can\u2019t believe people could be so cruel to each other,\u201d she added. \u201cYou can\u2019t fathom how people still take these journeys, many of them knowing the risks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Migrants identified Libya, Algeria and Ethiopia as the most dangerous countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over 72,400 migrants have sailed across the Mediterranean in 2024 alone, according the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/data.unhcr.org\/en\/situations\/mediterranean\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">U.N. Refugee Agency<\/a>, one of the sponsors of the new report, and at least 785 are known to be dead or missing. But as hard as it is to keep track of sea crossings, it is harder still, the report\u2019s authors said, to estimate the numbers of people trying to reach Africa\u2019s north shores after crossing remote, thinly populated and often lawless stretches of desert \u2014 and how many vanish along the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Between January 2020 and May 2024, 1,180 people are known to have died crossing the Sahara, but the true number is likely much higher, the report said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">European countries, to varying degrees, have long tried to dissuade migrants, and have paid nations in North Africa to prevent people from making the sea crossing. A <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousereports.com\/investigation\/desert-dumps\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">recent investigation<\/a> by a consortium of news outlets found that in some cases, European governments are paying to train and equip North African security forces that force migrants away from the coast and back into the desert without supplies, putting their lives at risk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Several of the countries that migrants try to cross are torn by armed conflict and extreme poverty, or have weak central governments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The combination of instability and hostility means that migrants in Africa have little chance of finding any recourse from the authorities, or treatment for physical or emotional trauma, said the report, which was also sponsored by the U.N.\u2019s International Organization of Migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The report, updating and expanding on one released in 2020, said that since then, \u201cthe security situation has further deteriorated in several countries, generating increased displacement and cross-border movements of persons in need of international protection and of migrants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/06\/world\/africa\/migrants-violence-rape-north-africa.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If not left to die of dehydration or illness, migrants on the dangerous land routes through northern Africa toward the Mediterranean and Europe risk rape, torture, sex trafficking and even organ theft, according to a new report produced in part by the United Nations. Migrant deaths on the Mediterranean have drawn global attention over the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/06\/multimedia\/06migrants-sahara-1-ljkf\/06migrants-sahara-1-ljkf-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[460,2086,48104,53,10791,6677,650,9282,68130,201],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88839,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88837\/revisions\/88839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}