Standup9ja: 44 Nigerian and Ghanaian Migrants ‘Die Of
Thirst’ In Sahara Desert
About 40 migrants from Nigeria and Ghana are reported to
have died of thirst in the Sahara Desert after their truck broke down in arid
northern Niger.
The Red Cross while disclosing this to Reuters on Wednesday
said the migrants, most of whom have not been identified, died this week.
It is understood that six survivors walked to a remote
village where they said that 44 people, mostly from Ghana and Nigeria and
including three babies and two other children, died of thirst.
Lawal Taher, the department head for the Red Cross in the
Bilma region, said a search for the bodies was underway.
The number of migrants who cross the Sahara has increased in
recent years as impoverished West Africans risk their lives to try to reach
Europe.
In one of the most perilous parts of the journey, thousands
of migrants each week are crammed into pickup trucks for the days-long ride
from Niger into Libya, often with only enough room for a few litres of water.
Authorities and aid organisations are able to keep track of
the thousands of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea between Africa and
Europe, but is it almost impossible to know how many have died in the vast and
unpoliced Sahara.
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