While much public attention is currently focused on the numbers of
irregular migrants reaching the Canary Islands or the Italian
island of Lampedusa, IOM is continuing to receive requests to help
migrants stranded in North Africa to return to their mainly
sub-Saharan home countries.

However, a lack of funds is seriously preventing IOM from
providing humanitarian assistance to these migrants. Hope for a
future has driven them and other migrants to search for a job and a
better life abroad, even if it means having to put themselves into
the hands of smuggling networks who then abandon their human cargo
far from their final destination.

Some of the migrants are left in the desert without identity
papers, little or no food and water and robbed of their belongings
by smugglers fearing interception by law enforcers. If they
survive, it is because local people provide them with food and
water.

Since November 2005 IOM has been providing assistance to
migrants stranded in Mauritania, Morocco, and other countries and
territories in Northern Africa under an emergency programme
supported by Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. About 475
migrants have been assisted with medical and return assistance
since last winter but many more are in need of assistance. While
the crack-down of Moroccan and Spanish authorities on irregular
migration has succeeded in reducing flows through Morocco, there
are still many hundreds of migrants who are stranded en route
elsewhere in the region. 

The consistent if not increasing irregular migration flows
through the region, and the often urgent need to provide assistance
to those left stranded in extremely difficult and precarious
circumstances, means it is essential that humanitarian assistance
such as help with getting home is still made available to those
most vulnerable and in need of attention.

Last week, IOM assisted three stranded Senegalese who wanted to
return home to Dakar from Morocco, one of whom had been
hospitalized for many months after jumping off a train to avoid a
police control and who had then been assisted by Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF). The man, who’d first reached
Morocco in March 2005 after transiting through Mali and Algeria,
had spent a year trying to cross into Spain before being caught and
sent to the Algerian border from where he again crossed into
Morocco.

The two others, who had transited through Mali, Burkina Faso,
Niger, Benin and Algeria, had been injured while trying to enter
the Spanish enclave of Melilla and had spent nine months in
hospital.

Currently IOM is trying to arrange the voluntary return of a
group of 15 Malian migrants who had been intercepted by the
Moroccan authorities. After this assistance has been provided, IOM
will only be able to register requests for the voluntary return
home of migrants unless new funding is raised.

The Organization has been made aware of 11 migrants currently
stranded in Morocco from Mali, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Sierra Leone and Pakistan and who want to go home.

In addition, the Embassy of Guinea Conakry in Morocco has
requested IOM to assist in the voluntary return of 17 Guineans
currently stranded in Dakhla.

For additional information pls. contact:

Mr. Stephane Rostiaux

IOM Rabat

E-mail: "mailto:srostiaux@iom.int">srostiaux@iom.int 

Mr. Peter Schatzer

IOM Rome

Tel: +39 06 44186201

E-mail: "mailto:pschatzer@iom.int">pschatzer@iom.int