On Friday, the French police said that Niger has arrested a Libyan suspected of smuggling thousands of migrants through the Sahel country towards Europe after a joint operation with the French and Spanish authorities.
The 29-year-old, who was detained on December 20th in the city of Agadez, told investigators he had overseen the departure of “60 migrants per week for seven years,” said Jean-Christophe Hilaire of the International Security Cooperation Directorate (DCIS) at the French Interior Ministry.
Hilaire added that pick-up trucks had driven the migrants — most from Nigeria or Cameroon — to the border with Algeria or war-torn Libya for a fee of 1,500€ to 2,000€. He noted that the Libyan suspect is now being held in the capital Niamey.
The European Union (EU)-funded operation was carried out with the help of three French and three Spanish policemen.
Many West African migrants try to reach Libya in the hope of making it across the Mediterranean to a better life in Europe.
They typically flock to Agadez, where smugglers offer to take them onwards to the Libyan border. The government in Niamey adopted a law in 2015 to make migrant smuggling a crime, with sentences of up to 30 years in prison.
However, a Nigerien security source has said the measure had only pushed smugglers to use “new, more dangerous routes.” European policemen have been present in Niger since 2017. Since then, 824 people have been arrested, the French official concluded.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said that 20,842 migrants were rescued and returned to Libya during 2022, after they attempted to migrate across the Mediterranean.
In a report, the IOM confirmed that 678 children and 1,089 women were among the surviving migrants, while 514 people died, and 865 migrants went missing in the same year.
The IOM announced earlier that it had intercepted 235 migrants across the Mediterranean between November 13th and 19th. The migrants were returned to Libya with the help of the Libyan Coast Guard.