Malvika Verma
The theme for International Migrants Day this year highlights how human mobility drives communities to connect and support each other, ultimately facilitating safer migration.
This is most evident in zones witnessing high mobility, but at the same time, also seeing higher risks for migrants during the migration cycle. It is not uncommon for migrants in transit to face extreme challenges that lead to many losing their way, while others risk abandonment, abuse and violence. In these situations, their access to essential services and protection remains limited or non-existent, often leading to deaths and/or migrants going missing. The exact scale of movements as well as those going missing or perishing en route remains difficult to determine due to several reasons, with clandestine movements and routes being just one. But it is a widely known fact that it is a common occurrence both on land and sea routes. Notably, migratory land routes that traverse the Sahara Desert witness significant numbers of such reports, with nearly 1,200 migrants reportedly having died while crossing the desert between 2020 and mid-2024. Accordingly, notions of the desert itself turning into a ‘mass grave’ are increasingly being evoked to highlight the tragedy of preventable deaths.
Better preparedness and prevention of migrant deaths and missing migrants is intricately linked to proactive engagement and mobilisation of non-state actors, including migrants’ families and host communities, civil society and other service providers in migration economies. Desert routes, including across Algeria, Libya, Niger, and Mali, can be treacherous and difficult to navigate, known only to those traversing them on the daily, including migrants themselves, vehicle operators, and local communities in surrounding towns and villages. They become first responders by default when they come across deceased migrants or their remains. Further, in these contexts, it is not uncommon for non-state actors to independently undertake or support search and rescue efforts for migrants in distress, as well as post-reception protection and assistance activities throughout the migration cycle. This includes:
- cooperation and coordination with local authorities and enforcement officials for mobilising resources (fuel, transport, etc.) for rescue operations;
- raising alerts and facilitating communication about migrants in distress;
- location and navigation of lost or abandoned migrants;
- supporting family liaison activities, e.g., phone calls;
- support with dignified burials of unidentified migrants found on migratory routes or in the desert.
It is equally important to acknowledge that the social fabric and political economy of migrant communities is different and rather difficult to navigate from an access point of view. Non-state actors, simply put, have more information – on routes, demographics of migrants, needs and vulnerabilities, etc. – in an otherwise complex landscape of cross-border mixed movements and transnational economies. This information is usually not systematised or coming from single sources, but rather, free-flowing information via informal communication channels. For this purpose, developing and maintaining effective local relationships and utilising community-grounded approaches becomes integral to prevent key information being lost or destroyed.
However, this is not to say that such community-based efforts replace or substitute state actors and offload state responsibility to already marginalised communities. Tragic incidents such as the discovery of deceased migrants often concern examining circumstances that are, in any case, difficult to decipher – from the causes of death to perpetrators. Combined with this, several migratory land routes in the Sahara Desert are in conflict – and violence-affected regions, and resources, access, and movement remain extremely constrained. It is in these contexts that community engagement and other solidarity-based approaches are central, but at the same time, extremely challenging especially with risk of criminalisation of civilian-led efforts and activities associated with the migration cycle.
However, proactive engagement of non-state actors could be key to justice and accountability in migratory contexts and areas known to be ‘hotspots’ for missing migrants and/or migrant deaths, particularly to the effect of establishing patterns of collective action and identifying perpetrators of violence. Naturally, to do so, there are some considerations to keep in mind. Overall, it is essential to create a conducive policy-legal environment on three counts:
- adoption of frameworks or agreements vis-à-vis migratory routes that span jurisdictions and borders, especially with respect to the question of dignified burials for unidentified migrants. Such efforts should include specific provisions on how non-state actors, including migrant communities, can be involved and in what capacity to make journeys safer, while ensuring minimum risks of reprisals and ethnoreligious tensions, and the nature of support needed from state and international actors to make this happen;
- decriminalisation of civilian efforts supporting migration-related activities, including search and rescue efforts, specifically at international borders. The remit of activities should be broad enough to cover the migration cycle and not be limited to a specific phase such as reception or transit, including the operation of safe and secure helplines and a circuit for alerting relevant entities upon discovery of migrants in distress and/or deceased migrants;
- bolstering and investing more in long-term community-grounded approaches as a preparedness measure, especially in humanitarian programming focusing on border regions known to see high mobility to build trust and networks over several years with non-state actors and overcome community divisions, so that when the time comes, they can be called upon for cooperation and act as intermediaries.
The Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration adopted in 2018 has as a key focus on safer journeys for migrants. This focus while central to migration requires a shift away from law enforcement approaches to more solidarity-driven efforts that prioritise prevention of loss of life.
