RABAT, Morocco, July 13 (UPI) -- What does an illegal migrant from Cameroon, Burkina Faso, or anywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa have in common with a European living in Helsinki, Lisbon, Madrid, Warsaw, Paris or Rome, or anywhere else in Europe?
The answer is much more complex than it would initially seem. For example, what possible interest do Europeans have that Africans, particularly those in poor and under-developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa, be they from Cameroon, Burkina, or elsewhere, be able to find employment in their home countries before they embark upon the long and often perilous road to self-imposed exiles, roads that will eventually take them north to Helsinki, Paris, Rome, Madrid or elsewhere. But first it will take them to Morocco.
Every year tens of thousands of Africans, if not more, leave their homes, escaping wars, civil strife, dictatorships, hunger, unemployment and ethnic tensions, looking for a safer environment for themselves and their families. Others, still, are drawn to Europe by the lures of a better and easier life.
And every year thousands die, as they drown in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, as they attempt to cross to the Spanish Canary Islands, Europe's first outpost in Africa. And every year thousands more perish in the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert when their cars break down miles from anywhere as they try to avoid regular border crossings. Stranded without water they barely last a few hours.
One biochemist who trekked three months from his native Cameroon to the Moroccan capital, Rabat, walking most of the way through Nigeria, Niger, Libya and Algeria before reaching Morocco told United Press International he saw hundreds of bodies in the desert, the remains of the far less fortunate would-be immigrants.
Whatever their destination might be, assuming they reach it, the immigrant will join millions of others illegal migrants in becoming a burden on the European country's already heavy tax burden. The illegal immigrant will join tens of hundreds of others or maybe even hundreds of thousands of others from his home country, or if those are few and hard to find, he will join other Africans in sharing their meager existence. Often, Africans coming from ethnicities that back home would be slaughtering one another, in exile can become the best of friends, as they unite out of necessity in an alien and often unwelcoming world.
For the most part, many immigrants, particularly newer arrivals, are housed in shantytowns in the worst parts of the cities, in out of the way slums; in areas most Europeans would prefer to pretend that the immigrants -- and their slums -- simply do not exist. The illegal immigrants arrive in these cities, adding to the high unemployment rate, taxing the social services, usually already stretched thin.
And the problem is not about to get any better anytime soon, unless drastic measures are taken. One obvious point upon which some 60 African and European ministers meeting for two days in Rabat earlier this week agreed upon was that deterrence alone would not work.
"Not through security measures alone," Andre Obame, Gabon's minister of the interior, security and immigration told United Press International at the close of the two-day international conference called at the behest of the Moroccans.
Morocco's communication minister, Mohammad Nabil Benabdallah, concurs that all the security measures in the world will not prevent clandestine immigration. What is called for is a combined effort between the Africans and Europeans.
"What is needed is a Marshall Plan for Africa," the kind that saved post-World War II Europe from ruin, Benabdallah, who is also the government's spokesman, told UPI.
"The European countries have understood that a poor Africa will produce immigrants. Thus the better way of fighting against illegal immigrants would be to fix them at home. And fixing them at home means to provide them with the means to develop themselves," Obame told UPI.
The answer -- in part -- is for Europe, the final destination of the majority of the illegal travelers, to help develop Africa, creating an economic and social atmosphere on the continent that would encourage the would-be migrants to stay at home. Sort of engineering reverse colonialism but without its ill effects.
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