2023-11-24 05:20:49
In Douala, Cameroon, during the burial ceremony of Bryan Achou*1, whose drowned body was found in the Mediterranean and returned to his family in November 2022, friends and relatives speak of his fate with emotion. “He’s a kid from my neighborhood!” In less than two weeks, we lost two children. One at sea between Turkey and Greece, the other in Tunisia,” says a woman, her face serious. “Really, before 2035, this country will be emptied of its citizens,” adds another mourner.
The year 2035 refers to the government’s new development document titled “Cameroon Vision 2025-2035” – 90-year-old autocrat Paul Biya’s plan to turn around the bloodless and conflict-torn nation. Judging by the disillusioned reactions this remark provoked, no one here believes in the chances of success of this project. There have been so many since Paul Biya came to power in 1982…
The people here – businessmen, teachers, office workers – are not starving. Nor are they directly affected by the armed insurgency raging in the western part of Cameroon. But they understand why young people want to leave, even if they risk death.
Shortly after attending the funeral of Bryan Achou, Cameroonian journalist from ZAM, Elizabeth BanyiTabi, learned that one of her friends, Eva*, was planning to leave the country and take the road to America: she would take the plane to Brazil, then buses north to the jungle on the border with Panama, known as the “Darién Gap”; from there, she will have to walk through a dense, hot forest, infested with poisonous snakes, spiders and criminal gangs. People who have completed the 80 kilometer walk through this gap have described it as “littered with corpses”. Eva knows all this, because one of her friends died in the “Gap of Darién” not long ago. “But I’ll try,” she said.
Horror stories
Around the same time, at Entebbe Airport in Kampala, Uganda, a human rights activist observed a line of veiled young women sitting in the departure area of the terminal. They appear to be Ugandan. An immigration official explains that they are on their way to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to work as domestic workers. The activist is troubled. Numerous reports indicate that this trafficking of domestic workers in the Middle East often places recruits in conditions close to slavery: excessive working hours, beatings, rape and even murder. Have these young girls missed the numerous radio and television reports from the Ugandan media on these horror stories?
Investigating further, ZAM journalist Emmanuel Mutaizbwa – a friend of the human rights activist – discovered that many Ugandans had heard these stories, but still chose to leave. He interviews 27-year-old Joyce Kyambadde, beaten, raped and abused, who nonetheless returned to the Gulf for a second stint of domestic work in recent years. “You always tell yourself that this time, you will have a salary. There’s hardly any hope here [en Ouganda] “, she says.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, at least 41% of young Ugandans aged 18 to 30 – a total of around 5 million people – are not engaged in any gainful employment. Among those who work, in stark contrast to a wealthy elite close to 79-year-old President Yoweri Museveni, many do not earn enough to pay even a modest rent.
“No hope here”
In Kenya, neighboring Uganda, there are many similar stories. “It’s like telling a child not to put his hand in a fire, he will do it anyway,” says Patricia Wanja Kimani, who herself suffered months of sexual abuse and beatings as a child. domestic worker in the Gulf, wrote a book about it, and today works for an NGO whose objective is to dissuade young Kenyan women from emigrating. His colleague Faith Murunga, who works for another NGO, admits that Kenyan youth – 67% of whom are unemployed, according to the Kenya Employers’ Federation – have few alternatives. As in Uganda, an extremely wealthy political elite does little to concretely improve the lot of the population. “We are trying to dialogue with the government [sur la question des perspectives pour les Kényans]. We do what we can,” says Faith Murunga.
The awareness campaigns carried out by the NGO seem to have a limited effect. Journalist Ngina Kirori asks ten random men and women on the streets of Nairobi if they would consider going to the Gulf despite the horrific stories told there. Four of them respond: “I will leave anyway because there is no hope here. » Two hesitate, telling Kirori that they are very scared, but still consider leaving. Only four are truly dissuaded. A few months later, Patricia Kimani also left Kenya in search of a future elsewhere…
Those interviewed by ZAM journalist Theophilus Abbah in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, are builders, plumbers, doctors. Nine out of ten say they want to do “japa” [« s’éjecter », en pidgin, NDLR], the Nigerian term for emigration, “at the first opportunity”. Here too, witnesses cite poor governance, the deplorable state of health, education and other public services, extreme wealth disparities, corruption and repression of media and societal organizations. civil society in the country. “The suffering is unbearable,” says a building contractor. I would have liked to stay in Nigeria if the country worked. »
Most Nigerians try to leave on visas, but many settle for illegal “japa,” walking north through the Sahel and Sahara, hoping to reach the Mediterranean Sea. According to NGOs that work with Nigerian migrants, the overwhelming majority of them never reach the coasts, remaining stuck in the Sahel, where they often end up exploited on construction sites, in trafficking or begging networks, in brothels, or in detention.
A deep divide
As in Cameroon, Uganda and Kenya, the risks are well known in Nigeria. Yet people continue to leave, explains Grace Osakue, of the NGO Girls’ Power Initiative, which aims to create small businesses for former migrants and would-be migrants to Nigeria. She admits that things don’t always go very well and explains to Abbah that “even those who have already experienced difficulties move on again.” This observation is corroborated by a rapport of 2021 commissioned by the European Union, which estimates that more than 60% of Nigerian migrants who have been “rescued” are “likely to try to leave again”.
No less than 95% of teachers surveyed in November 2022 by the Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe said that if they had the chance they would work elsewhere. According to the union’s president, Obert Masaraure, the reason is that teachers earn so little that they cannot provide for their families, “not even for food or school fees.” He considers a colleague “very lucky” who managed to go to Saudi Arabia, he explains to journalist Brezh Malaba.
It’s not as if Zimbabwe is poor: the country has some of the most abundant reserves of gold and diamonds in the world, not to mention lithium and other rare minerals. Numerous reports and documentaries, such as « Gold Mafia », from Al Jazeera, showed how revenues are regularly monopolized by figures from the ruling party, Zanu-PF. “The ruling elites are stripping the nation of all its wealth,” enrages Obert Masaraure. They even facilitate the plundering of our natural resources by foreign multinationals. We teachers and other professionals are heavily taxed, but ministers receive enormous salaries. We finance their private jets and […] their luxury spending. »
” Life is too short “
When, in the recent elections considered fraudulent, Zanu-PF won again, Zimbabwe’s X network (formerly Twitter) was flooded with messages aimed at its southern neighbor, South Africa, whose president, Cyril Ramaphosa, congratulated his counterpart Emmerson Mnangagwa on his victory. “I also congratulate you on the number of Zimbabweans who will soon enter your country illegally,” said one.
An estimated 1 to 2 million Zimbabwean immigrants, part of the 3 to 5 million Zimbabweans living outside their country (out of a total of 16 million Zimbabwean citizens), have come to South Africa in recent decades. Their presence has been the target of political pressure from South African politicians, who have orchestrated hate campaigns against Zimbabweans, including accusing them of being criminals. Zimbabwean tweeters are well aware of this. “But we keep coming,” they say. “If you have the opportunity to leave, do it,” launched The News Hawks on its X account (formerly Twitter) after the election results were made public. ” Life is too short. »
In the five countries studied, the team found no one saying it was possible to stop migration from African countries. As Cameroonian opposition activist Kah Walla said, “No one leaves their house if it is comfortable. If I think that for my survival I must leave my country, I will use all means to do so. » Elizabeth BanyiTabi, journalist at ZAM, was herself encouraged by a man next to her on a plane from Cameroon to Amsterdam “not to come back”.
Most of those interviewed, like ZAM reporters, are saddened by the state of the countries where they were born. But if reporters remain attached to their profession, hoping that journalism will eventually have some impact, many interlocutors feel powerless to change anything, or to “build their own country”, as journalists tend to say. Westerners who oppose immigration. “Yes, our country must develop, it needs excellence,” said Dr. Ejike Oji, expert in the health sector in Nigeria. So it’s sad to see our best minds leave. But [dans le système nigérian] you will be overlooked, even if you are the brightest. Excellence is not rewarded here. »
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