The 613 men had traveled from their native Niger to neighboring Libya, where many of them planned to reach Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, a journey that thousands of people in sub-Saharan Africa strive to make each year.
But late last month, the men were deported by Libyan authorities in one of the country’s largest expulsions in years. The mass deportation is part of a common pattern: North African governments, funded by the European Union to tackle migration, use brutal tactics to prevent migrants from sub-Saharan Africa from heading to Europe.
The 613 men arrived in the Niger town closest to the Libyan border on January 3, disheveled and hungry, some barefoot and sick after months of detention and days of travel across the Sahara. Two of the men died shortly after arriving in Niger.
“I lived through hell,” said Salmana Issoufou, one of the men. Issoufou, 18, said Libyan prison guards had beaten him with cables and weapons during his eight months in detention.
As anti-immigrant sentiment rises across Europe, from France to Germany to Hungary, sub-Saharan African citizens trying to reach the continent are being turned away by North African governments at rates not seen in years. The EU has signed bilateral agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania, which include financial support to stop migratory flows.
The strategy appears to be working: Illegal border crossings decreased sharply in 2024, according to recent data data of the European Union border agency, Frontex.
But human rights groups say the methods used to prevent sub-Saharan migrants from traveling to Europe include well-documented human rights violations, such as so-called desert dumps. Immigrants have been abandoned in the Sahara without food or water, or held in North African prisons where they face torturesexual violence and hunger.
Since Tunisia reached a deal with the European Union in 2023, it has dumped more than 12,000 people, including children and pregnant women, into desert areas of Libya. according to the United Nations. Last year, the EU signed a similar agreement with Mauritania.
In Libya, the European Union has financed the country’s coast guard, accused of firing live ammunition during interceptions at sea and handing over immigrants to violent militias.
An investigation by a media consortium Last year showed that North African security forces have used vehicles and intelligence provided by EU countries to arrest migrants or transport them to desert areas.
The 613 men who were sent back to Niger this month have been detained in Libya since at least last fall, according to Niger regional officials, who escorted them from the border to Dirkou, a Nigerien town about 260 miles south of Libya.
Two men died in Dirkou, according to Abba Tchéké, a social worker who helped the men there and who works for Alarm Phone Sahara, a nonprofit that rescues migrants stranded in the desert.
The men arrived last week in Agadez, the largest city in northern Niger and a major transit hub for migrants. They were exhausted and dehydrated, and some had skin lesions and broken limbs. Half a dozen men who were deported said in interviews with The New York Times that they had been mistreated by Libyan authorities.
Adamou Harouna, 36, said prison guards had burned plastic on him while he was detained.
Libya’s mass deportation echoes similar moves by Algeria, which shares a 580-mile-long border with Niger and last year deported more than 31,000 people, the highest number in years, according to Sahara alarm phone.
Algerian authorities drop off migrants at the border with Niger, forcing them to walk for hours through the desert before reaching the nearest city. Migrants also face beatings and physical violence in Algerian prisons. (The European Union does not have a migration agreement with Algeria).
While expulsions from Libya to Niger have so far been fewer than those from Algeria, the recent mass deportation has raised concerns about a possible increase. Last year, hundreds of African citizens were returned from Libya to Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia. according to the United Nations.
In Africa, deported migrants are returned to their countries of origin by the United Nations International Organization for Migration. In Niger, the organization transports people abandoned in border areas back to Agadez and then to their countries of origin on planes that depart several times a week.
For Nigerien men, the organization organized buses. Issoufou, 18, said he would remain in Niger. Harouna said he plans to travel back to Libya as soon as possible.
Ibrahim Manzo Diallo contributed to this report from Niamey, Niger, Saikou Jammeh from Dakar, Senegal and Jenny Gross from London.
