{"id":35147,"date":"2017-06-14T16:44:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/niger-army-rescues-92-migrants-in-sahara-desert\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T16:45:08","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:45:08","slug":"niger-army-rescues-92-migrants-in-sahara-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/niger-army-rescues-92-migrants-in-sahara-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Niger army rescues 92 migrants in Sahara Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Troops in northern Niger have rescued 92 migrants who were on the brink of death in the Sahara Desert, an army statement has said.}<\/p>\n

Traffickers abandoned the group, which included women and children, without water and food, it added.<\/p>\n

One migrant died after being taken to a relief centre, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.<\/p>\n

African migrants travel through the desert to reach Libya before crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.<\/p>\n

However, the journey through the desert is perilous as the migrants are crammed into pick-up trucks and have little food or water.<\/p>\n

More than 40 people died of thirst in the Sahara Desert about a fortnight ago after their truck broke down.<\/p>\n

And last June, the bodies of 34 migrants, including 20 children, were found in the Sahara Desert near Niger’s border with Algeria.<\/p>\n

The rescued migrants, who included at least 30 women and babies, were being looked after at a facility in the garrison town of Dirkou in northern Niger, the IOM said.<\/p>\n

“Usually what happens in such situations is that smugglers try to exploit them,” IOM head of mission Giusseppe Lopreta told BBC Focus on Africa.<\/p>\n

“They ask for more money when they are in the middle of the desert. If they don’t pay, they are abandoned.”<\/p>\n

He said the migrants – most of whom were from Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Burkina Faso – were saved because they were abandoned near a well.<\/p>\n

The unforgiving conditions of the Sahara Desert mean that a broken down vehicle is often a death sentence for migrants.<\/p>\n

Niger serves as a transit point for West Africans hoping to reach Europe to start a better life.<\/p>\n

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants cross the Sahara to reach Libya. From the Libyan coast they board rickety boats to ferry them to Europe.<\/p>\n

Many drown in the Mediterranean but, perhaps, less well known, are the dangers they face while crossing the Sahara.<\/p>\n

It’s not known how many deaths there are every year – as it’s a vast, ungoverned region. But many migrants die of thirst, while others are robbed and attacked by criminal gangs and security forces.<\/p>\n

\"Many<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Troops in northern Niger have rescued 92 migrants who were on the brink of death in the Sahara Desert, an army statement has said.} Traffickers abandoned the group, which included women and children, without water and food, it added. One migrant died after being taken to a relief centre, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35147"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35147"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}