They come from all across sub-Saharan Africa, as well as from Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, and as far away as Bangladesh. They are arriving by the tens of thousands in Libya and Morocco in a courageous effort to survive and find hope in Europe.
In 2015 one million people crossed the Mediterranean from Libya into Italy, Turkey into Greece, and Morocco into Spain. In 2018, only about 115,000 crossed, mostly from Morocco to Spain. So many were drowning by 2018 that the Mediterranean has become the world’s deadliest sea.
In 2019, the UNHCR provided aid to 55,000 Malians in Mauritania, 8,000 Africans in Morocco, 9,000 Africans and Syrians in Algeria, 1500 refugees in Tunisia, and 1.5 million migrants and returnees in Libya. In addition, the UNHCR supports 90,000 refugees from the Western Sahara in Algeria.
African migrants in North Africa are often desperately poor, treated badly by locals, and in Libya they are vulnerable to violent gangs who randomly kill and enslave them.