Scores of Niger migrants die of thirst trying to cross Sahara

The victims include 52 children and 33 women who died when their vehicles broke down

Landscape view dated May 2003 shows the Saharan desert in southern Algeria, near the city of Illizi. Dozens of Nigerien migrants heading for Algeria died of thirst in the desert south of the Sahara after their vehicle broke down, local officials said (AFP/Getty Images )

Rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, including 52 children, strewn across the Sahara in northern Niger after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst, authorities have confirmed. Almoustapha Alhacen, a rescue worker, said the bodies of the children, along with 33 women and seven men from Niger, were found on the route from the northern mining town of Arlit to the Algerian border.

Many were in an advanced state of decomposition and were partly devoured by animals, probably jackals, he said.

Northern Niger lies on a major corridor for illegal migration and people-trafficking from sub-Saharan Africa into North Africa and across the Mediterranean into Europe. Most of those who make the perilous journey on ancient open-topped trucks are young African men in search of work.

Rescuers said the doomed convoy of women and children was puzzling. “It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it,” Mr Alhacen told Reuters by telephone from Arlit. “It is hard to understand what these women and children were doing there.”

Rescuers found many writing slates in the luggage, suggesting the children may have been students in an Islamic school being taken to Algeria, perhaps to beg, Mr Alhacen said.

Of the original group, 19 had reached Algeria by foot and were repatriated to Niger by authorities there, he said. Two also survived after walking many miles across the desert back to Arlit. The bodies of 87 of the victims were buried on Wednesday in accordance with Islamic custom.

The migrants had set off in two trucks from Arlit towards Tamanrasset in Algeria some time between late September and mid-October, officials and rescue workers suspect.

After one truck broke down, the second turned back to look for help but was stranded and the passengers tried to return by foot. “The search is still going on,” the mayor of Arlit, Maouli Abdouramane, said.

Many people flee poverty in Niger, ranked by the United Nations as the least developed country on earth. Some work in neighbouring Libya and Algeria to save money before returning home.

The networks which send trucks across the desert also attract migrants from across West Africa who dream of a more prosperous life in Europe.

More than 32,000 people have arrived in southern Europe from Africa so far this year.

A crackdown by Spanish authorities has largely closed a route from the West African coast to the Canary Islands which drew tens of thousands of migrants in the mid-2000s.

Instead, most now try to make the Mediterranean crossing from North Africa to southern Europe, many losing their lives when their rickety boats are wrecked.

More than 500 people are believed to have died in two shipwrecks off southern Italy last month.

Reuters