GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Even as a high-level dialogue among states and governments on the issue of international migration began at the United Nations Headquarters in New York last Thursday, October 3, the media were reporting that more than 100 African migrants had perished (now believed to be more than 300) when their boat capsized and sank in the Mediterranean off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
These men and women (reports are that the boat was carrying 500 people) had most likely paid their life savings or had borrowed money to pay the person who was going to smuggle them into Europe. There, like the thousands before them, they would suffer the ignominy of being illegal immigrants: hiding from the authorities and being subjected to abuse and being taken advantage of by persons who know their status among other things.
That they endured these atrocities meted out to them, often without complaining gives an indication of the conditions under which they lived in their homelands. Poverty has long been a reason for migration. It is possibly the number one reason for the massive south to north migration that has taken millions of people from the developing to the developed world.