The bodies of 27 migrants, including four children, have been found in the Chadian desert, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), they died of thirst.
According to the United Nations-affiliated agency the migrants left in a pick-up truck nearly a year and a half ago from Moussoro, a town in west-central Chad, and are believed to have gotten lost deep in the desert when the truck broke down and eventually died of thirst,.
Landlocked Chad borders Libya to the north and is a transit country for migrants trying to reach the Mediterranean.
More than 5,600 people have died or gone missing trying to cross the Sahara Desert in the last eight years, with 110 migrant deaths recorded in Chad, including these most recent fatalities, said IOM. The actual numbers, however, are thought to be higher as many deaths go unrecorded.
IOM’s head of mission in Chad , Anne Kathrin Schaefer, said that this year nearly 150 migrants have died in Chadian desert and they are deeply saddened by the most recent tragedy and extend their heartfelt condolences to the migrants’ families.
For decades, Chad has been a transit route for people trying to reach Libya and other North African countries from where they will try to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. Since 2016, pressure by European Union countries to discourage illegal migration has forced migrants to take dangerous routes, resulting in many deaths, say conflict analysts.
Those migrants come from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Cameroon, and other countries in the region that are willing to take the risks with the hope of reaching Northern Africa and eventually Europe,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based organization and Sometimes have to take riskier routes to avoid security forces and human traffickers and at times that risk could cost their lives. Aljaazera
