Migrants protesting outside the IOM office in Dirkou, northern Niger, December 2024.

Having been stranded in squalor for 5 months, without sufficient food and water, they are asking for their return to their families to be facilitated.

The migrant protest in Dirkou reflects a general problem:

Due to mass deportations from the Maghreb states and the consequences of repressive migration policies on the Sahel-Sahara routes, thousands of people are stranded in various places in Niger under precarious conditions.

With no other options open to them, many of them have no hope but to return to their countries and regions of origin.

However, even the so-called ‘voluntary’ return programmes promised by the IOM are very slow to be implemented in practice, meaning that many of the people affected remain stuck in places like Dirkou for months with an uncertain outcome.

The precarious situation of the People on the Move in Dirkou and other places in Niger is a direct consequence of the externalisation of the European border regime, which takes no responsibility for its impact on the people affected.