GENEVA / IOM AFRICAN MIGRANTS

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the discovery of the remains of 34 migrants this week near the Algeria-Niger border brings the total number of deaths and disappearances recorded on the African continent this year to 471. UNTV CH

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:37
• Production Date: 17 June 2016
• Asset Language: English
• Corporate Name: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION - IOM
• Subject Topical: MIGRANTS
• Geographic Subject: AFRICA
• MAMS Id: 1648636
• Parent Id: 1648636
• Alternate Title: unifeed160617a

Description

STORY: GENEVA / IOM AFRICAN MIGRANTS
TRT: 1:37
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 17 JUNE 2016 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Shotlist

1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Joel Millmann, Spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM):
“The number of deaths since the beginning of January last year, I think it is 678, and there is a lot of details on what happens to the people within Africa, migration that includes terrible exploitation into sex trafficking and also children forced into begging into some African cities.”
4. Med shot, Spokespersons
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Joel Millmann, Spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM):
“This indicates a terrible abuse of people on the route, whether this is just armed men taking advantage of these people or it is part of sex trafficking. I don’t really have the details on that. We do know of literally hundreds of women from Nigeria have been forced into prostitution in Libya after being told they didn’t have enough money to make the trip up from Nigeria to the coast. So it is well known that this is a common practice.”
6. Wide shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Joel Millmann, Spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM):
“We hear of smugglers misleading people, telling them the border is 5 kilometers away and we will meet you on the other side and leaving them to wander and after they have been taken their money and people dying that way. We also hear about vehicles that run out of gas or become disabled in the high temperatures while they are waiting for relief people die of dehydration, which is very common on that route.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. Close up, journalist
10. Med shot, journalists

Storyline

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the discovery of the remains of 34 migrants this week near the Algeria-Niger border brings the total number of deaths and disappearances recorded on the African continent this year to 471.

IOM spokesperson Joel Millmann told reporters today (17 Jun) in Geneva that “the number of deaths since the beginning of January last year, I think it is 678, and there is a lot of details on what happens to the people within Africa, migration that includes terrible exploitation into sex trafficking and also children forced into begging into some African cities.”

Since its start in 2015, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded deaths of migrants across the African continent.

Missing Migrants Project also has recorded 80 deaths in the Horn of Africa this year, 60 of those were drownings in the Straits of Yemen, a sea route many Somalis, Eritreans, and Ethiopians travel to reach the Arabian Peninsula. The remaining 21 deaths were recorded on land, as migrants traveled towards Sudan. Almost half of these were violent deaths, many at the hands of migrant smugglers.

According to the Missing Migrants Project, at least 250 migrants have died between January and June 2016 in Libya and Sudan alone, many due to exposure, starvation or dehydration in the Sahara Desert as well as due to excessive sexual attacks which are responsible for dozens of deaths.

Millmann said “this indicates a terrible abuse of people on the route, whether this is just armed men taking advantage of these people or it is part of sex trafficking. I don’t really have the details on that. We do know of literally hundreds of women from Nigeria have been forced into prostitution in Libya after being told they didn’t have enough money to make the trip up from Nigeria to the coast. So it is well known that this is a common practice.”

He also said “we hear of smugglers misleading people, telling them the border is 5 kilometers away and we will meet you on the other side and leaving them to wander and after they have been taken their money and people dying that way. We also hear about vehicles that run out of gas or become disabled in the high temperatures while they are waiting for relief people die of dehydration, which is very common on that route.”

According to IOM, 20 Somali suffocated this week in a truck in Zambia. IOM estimates that all the recorded deaths may be only a friction of the true number of migrant fatalities across North Africa.