Julien Brachet

The Blind Spot of Repression: Migration Policies and Human Survival in the Central Sahara

The central Sahara region has a long-standing history of migratory movements as a mode of livelihoods. Movements from the Sahel to Algeria and Libya for seasonal employment emerged in the 1950’s, and by the early 1990’s concerns over migratory movements in this region translated into the important arena of competing interests over livelihood and security. Despite human-made obstacles constituted by the predatory practices of local representatives of the Nigerien state on the one hand and the hardening of North African migration policies on the other, tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa travel each year to North Africa via the city of Agadez in northern Niger. These migratory movements have become an important factor in international relations in multiple directions: between sub-Saharan governments and between North African and European governments.

De quelques aspects des dimensions politiques et économiques des circulations migratoires au Sahara central

Cet article analyse les dynamiques et les recentes transformations du systeme migratoire saharien, et montre comment les politiques migratoires actuellement mises en œuvre dans cet espace affectent ceux qui y vivent ou y circulent. Une approche historique de ces circulations migratoires intra-africaines permet tout d’abord de mettre en evidence leurs enjeux economiques en Afrique du Nord-Ouest. Puis, la question des politiques migratoires est abordee a travers les exigences europeennes de controle de ces circulations migratoires qui se traduisent, via differents echelons legaux et institutionnels, par une degradation des conditions de circulation au Sahara.