They travel thousands of kilometers from West Africa to Calabar in southern Nigeria, where a makeshift boat will lead them to a "better life". These migrants do not cross the Mediterranean. Their objective is not Europe, but the rich African oil countries.
Symphorien Hounkanrin, 35, is from Ketonou, a poor village in Benin. Apart from fishing, "there is nothing to do there" for young people who like him, have stopped school in CM2. His brothers have all left in Libreville (Gabon) or Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).
"There is work, you can win a lot there," the young man, who dreams of joining them, ignites. "You can go back and build a nice house in the village, like those in Europe!". More than half of African migrants are looking for work inside their continent, recalled the UN in 2012.
Like Gabon and its approximately 1.8 million inhabitants, the sparsely populated black-producing countries attract an abundant foreign labor force each year.
To reach them, Burkinabés, Malians, Nigerians or Beninese do not hesitate to take all the risks. Thanks to free circulation in the West African Economic Area
(CEDEA), most of them join the Calabar road in Nigeria.
A few nautical miles from the coveted countries, this peaceful port of the Gulf of Guinea is
Which in a few years became the hub of migrant trafficking to Central Africa
"Nobody knows how many die or die" on the way, because very few African states possess this kind of statistics, explains AFP Nassirou Afagnon, representative of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) in Benin.
- Old slave port -
In front of a small jetty littered with rubbish, an employee of the Maritime Union promises his potential customers a guaranteed journey "without identity control": 7,000 naira (20 euros) to the Cameroonian port of Limbe.
From there, another boat takes them to Gabon for 15,000 FCFA (23 euros). For the same crossing, some extorted up to 350,000 FCFA (533 euros) per migrant.
The smugglers are located along the Marina Bay, right in the center of Calabar. They are called "businessmen" here.
During the day, they legally collect fishermen and merchandise to neighboring Nigerian ports. But before the first light of dawn, another kind of cargo, human and silent, embarks in their makeshift canoes.
At the end of February, Joe Abang, Cross River State Minister of Justice, sounded the alarm: "Calabar has become the + transit port for the traffickers," he warned public meeting.
"They use the ports and the various lagoons of the area to transport their victims to countries like Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, among others," he denounced. "But I have bad news for them. Cross River has never been and will never be a refuge for criminals."
Overlooking the lagoon, the city's museum reminds us where the wealth of its inhabitants comes from. Cruel irony of history, Calabar was between the 17th and the 19th century a major port of slave trade destined for the New World.
The Efik (local ethnic group), who captured the men from the interior tribes and traded them for European charms, were even considered "very good negotiators," one can read on the faded walls of this former colonial mansion.
"We have integrated slavery into our mentalities," asserts Bassey Ndem, a former minister of Cross River. "But now it is they (the Africans) who beg to go in the boats".
- Disappeared at sea -
The trip, which lasts several days, is "very well organized by unscrupulous agents + who receive migrants at every stage," notes Nassirou Afagnon, IOM, who took charge of dozens of voluntary returns each year latest. It is also full of dangers.
Little mediaized in relation to the Mediterranean, the shipwrecks of overloaded canoes regularly occur off the Atlantic coasts. One night last January, a young man from the village of Symphorien disappeared at sea.
His parents, who were waiting for him in Gabon, had no news. "His laptop was cut shortly after the departure of Calabar and nothing since. Boats + spoil often (break) often," said the young Beninese fatalistically, who is not discouraged.
Local immigration services are often powerless against migrant trafficking facilitated by porous maritime borders. "In most cases, they are not detected," an officer said on condition of anonymity.
"They are adapting their routes and we do not have enough boats to stop the traffickers" in the mazes of lagoons and streams of the region. Minors, often very young, fall into the trap of networks of smugglers who come to their country of origin after having promised their families to send them to school.
Once they arrive at their destination, "so-called uncles or aunts" make them work as domestic servants or street vendors, explains the immigration officer. "In fact, it is slavery."
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