Close to 300,000 Nigerien and Chadian migrant workers have been fleeing violence in Libya since February. Most of them crossed the desert, in dire health and security conditions. On arrival, they are met with their community of origin that heavily depended on what the returnees would send them home.

Overloaded trucks leave Libya every day for Niger and the Chadian border, but water sources, markets and hospitals along the way are scarce if they exist at all in such a desertic area on the triple border. The entire region has been seeing mass migrant movements from Tripoli, Misrata, Sirt or Sebha, one of the oases of the Libyan South. Early June 2011, the number of returnees was estimated around 280,000 people. Fleeing violence, many came home exhausted, often sick, after long and difficult journeys, zigzagging over borders because of landmines for 20 or 30 days, suffering from heat and lack of water.

Many had left in search for work to help support their family. Now, their return has caused deterioration in the already preoccupying food security situation of these regions of Niger and Chad, and poses a double threat to their host family. Not only has their return eliminated a source of income with what migrants were sending back home, but it also represents another mouth to feed for each of these already vulnerable families.

General economic instability

Once they arrive back home, the trouble goes on. Adamou, a Nigerien who worked as a cobbler in Misrata, explains: “In Libya, I could send money back to my family. I don’t have a single Franc (CFA) today for food, or clothes. I am the eldest, so the whole family expects me to provide and bring money home. It is really a tough situation.”

The war in Libya has had an important impact on Chad, a landlocked country that depends on importations from Tripoli. The region stretching from N’Djamena to Abeche is particularly sensitive to climatic or economic crises. The return of hundreds of thousands of migrants has already had serious repercussions on the food security and access to resources for most inhabitants of the Sahel band.

Support during lean period

With support from the French Foreign Office Centre de Crise, ACTED has therefore been providing relief since late July in the Tahoua region of Niger to returnees and their families, but also to the most vulnerable households of the Tabalak locality. 6,300 families are benefitting from unconditional cash transfers during the lean period (between two harvests, August and September).

Once the emergency phase is over, ACTED will seek to maintain its presence with the most vulnerable. ACTED therefore works with Nigerien NGO IQCRA to develop further recovery activities, including professional training. Without support, the security climate could worsen in an already tense region. In Chad, ACTED is operating in the Oum Hadjer and Abeche areas, in food security and access to water programs. This new issue is becoming an important focus, as new projects are planned with specific support to returnees, in the transit and returning areas.