After three months of crossing the desert and then watching other migrants die at sea in his failed attempt to reach Europe, Sahr John Yambasu gave up on getting across the Mediterranean and decided to go back home.
The 29-year-old from Sierra Leone reached Niger in June on his return journey, but United Nations officials said he had to wait for packed migrant centre to empty before he could be repatriated. Then mutinous soldiers toppled Niger’s president a few weeks later, bringing regional tensions and the shuttering of the borders. Yambasu was trapped.
He is one of nearly 7,000 discouraged migrants trying to get home elsewhere in Africa that the UN stimates have been stranded in Niger since late July when members of the presidential guard overthrew the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamad Bazoum.
Niger’s junta closed its airspace and regional countries closed border crossings as part of economic and travel sanctions, making it hard for people to leave. Niger is an important route both for Africans trying to reach Libya as a jumping off spot to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and those who are returning to their homes with help from the United Nations.
UN officials estimate about 1,800 in Yambasu’s predicament are living on Niger’s streets because centre run by the International Organistion for Migration are too crowded to take in more. The centre hold about 5,000 people trying to get home.