Agadez in northern Niger and Sebha in southern Libya are transit hubs along the same transnational human smuggling route linking West Africa to the Libyan coastline, and Europe. Both are desert cities, located approximately 1,300 kilometres apart, and both have comparable geographic features. Both cities are historic trading centres in the Sahara desert whose populations have historically felt marginalized by the governments in their respective capital cities. So why is human smuggling and trafficking more closely connected to violence in Sebha than it is in Agadez? In Sebha, there have been widespread reports of abuses of migrants and localized outbreaks of violent conflict, with competition for control of smuggling being a notable feature. Such abuses are more sporadic in Agadez, though overland movement for migrants has become more perilous in the aftermath of a crackdown on migrant smuggling in 2016.
International policymakers tend to view smuggling activities as by-products of limited state capacity and weak rule of law. As such, policy interventions to date have prioritized investing in law enforcement and judicial approaches to reducing migrant mobility. Viewing the sector through a comparative conflict analysis lens, however, provides more insight into the divergent conflict dynamics in these locations. This short article explores how the irregular migration[1] of migrants[2] and refugees[3] via human smuggling[4] and trafficking in persons (TIP)[5] interacts with structural features in both Agadez and Sebha in order to explain the differences that we see.
The growth of smuggling as a key source of revenue and the international response
In both Agadez and Sebha the local conditions for migrant smuggling and human trafficking have fluctuated dramatically throughout the past decade. The collapse of the regime’s security apparatus and the governance void that followed led to the rapid expansion of smuggling networks in Libya, likened to an ‘industrialisation’ of sorts. The numbers of migrants entering Italy across the Mediterranean increased from around 28,500 in 2011 to nearly 163,000 in 2016. On the other side of the border, an estimated 333,000 migrants passed through Agadez in that same year alone. ECOWAS citizens were permitted to undertake visa-free travel to the Libyan border, albeit not into Libya itself. At this time the costs for crossing the Mediterranean from Libya were falling dramatically, contributing to the creation of a permissive environment for travel via Niger that sparked a surge in irregular migration via Agadez to Sebha.
In both Sebha and Agadez, the smuggling sector became a significant source of revenue. Amid a wider economic malaise in Libya, the smuggling sector has represented a lucrative source of income, particularly for the younger generations who perceive there to be limited alternatives for making a living. Agadez enjoyed a commercial boom thanks to the revenues from smuggling, with a forthcoming Chatham House analysis confirming that the 2011–2016 period saw significant urban expansion and an increase in population density.
These developments sparked action from European policymakers. Due to concerns of an unfolding ‘migrant crisis’, European policymakers pushed for a law to criminalize smuggling in Niger and engaged in a series of Faustian bargains with Libyan authorities to reduce migrant flows.
Divergent patterns of authority and security
When looking at the broader context within the two cities, the differences come into focus. Local disputes have led to the development of a competitive security sector in Sebha, which is not mirrored in Agadez. This is the primary relevant difference between the two locations.
In Sebha, authority in the city remains disputed among tribal groups and political rivals. The relationship between Sebha, seen as the capital of Libya’s Fezzan region, and the post-Gaddafi state has been complicated by administrative division and local competition. Governance remains poorly institutionalized and the security environment in Sebha is highly competitive and fractious.
In the absence of ‘regular’ state forces, armed groups in Sebha have close affiliations with social constituencies and are generally seen to act in favour of community or, more often than not, out of self-interest. Critically, the physical control of territory by armed groups, including through the maintenance of physical checkpoints, infrastructure and detention centres creates a securitized environment calibrated along community lines for a much of the economic activity that takes place – licit or otherwise. Human smuggling and trafficking has been no exception.
Smugglers in the city must pay ‘protection’ fees in order to operate and are effectively taxed to move through checkpoints manned by local armed groups. Following attempts to clamp down on smuggling practices as a result of pressure from European policymakers, these protection markets fragmented and have shifted to even more coercive practices such as indentured labour and ransoming.
In Niger, Agadez has had a more functional relationship with Niamey’s governing authority throughout this period. Quotas in government representation and the decentralization of administrative functions have been used to appease minority groups, such as the Tuareg. Importantly, no competitive security environment comparable to Sebha’s exists in Agadez. While organized crime groups do operate within the territory and criminality is present, the level of violence among these groups is relatively limited, and migrant smuggling took place with varying degrees of direct and indirect state complicity.
In fact, it was European pressure in Niger that changed the situation by incentivizing the Nigerien authorities to criminalize the sector. This policy, which formally ended in late 2023 when Niger’s new military-led government repealed the anti-smuggling laws, succeeded in reducing the number of migrants passing through Agadez. But the law spurred the proliferation of more dangerous routes designed to avoid detection by state authorities, which in turn placed migrants at greater risk. In a recent example of these perils, a mass grave containing 65 migrants’ bodies was discovered in southwest Libya, with those who died believed to have perished while traversing the desert. While some of the economic impact of the collapse of the smuggling industry was defrayed by the acceleration of a gold rush throughout much of Niger, thousands of households who benefited from the migration economy lost an important source of revenue. Banditry throughout northern Niger has also increased in recent years and is linked to the growing presence of armed actors from southern Libya and Chad who travel to Niger to engage in predatory activities. Yet, the context remains significantly more peaceful than in Libya.
How social disputes are antagonized by the movement of people
A further difference between the two locations lies in the degree of social cohesion within the two cities. In Sebha, the presence of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa antagonizes ongoing social disputes. Tensions within the local communities as a result of ongoing disputes transpose with issues pertaining to colourism.
These differences have a significant impact on the treatment of irregular migrants traversing through the two areas. Notably, in Sebha the increased presence of Tebu – a transnational Saharan community that has been historically marginalized – within the city and the expansion of Tebu economic interests in the illicit sector has sparked confrontations with Sebha’s Arab tribes, such as the Awlad Suleiman, who see Sebha as ‘their’ historic capital. Considerable discrimination persists along lines of ethnicity. Despite the long-standing presence of migrants from Niger, Chad and other sub-Saharan states in the workforce in Libya prior to 2011, non-Libyans report that they are subject to discriminatory practices and are vulnerable to exploitation, and locals blame ‘foreigners’ have for destabilizing the city.
Notably, such tensions are not as acute within Agadez. The presence of conspicuous displays of wealth and the increased economic power of Tebu profiting from the smuggling sector has engendered some animosity from the Tuareg and Hausa majority population, but this has not thus far spilled over into intercommunal violence.
How violent conflict has conditioned the sector
Violent conflict can be seen to lie at the heart of the varying degrees of violence displayed in human smuggling and TIP practices in Agadez and Sebha. In Sebha, the drivers of this conflict are primarily domestic in origin, stemming from ongoing governance disputes at local and national levels, which are in turn connected to unresolved intercommunal tensions within Sebha. These, along with the continuing presence of colourism, shape migrant smuggling and trafficking activities. In Agadez, however, it was measures to criminalize and reduce migration in adherence to European policy priorities that lead to more migrant deaths, while further increasing tensions within the local community and increased the violence to which migrants are exposed.
These developments in the smuggling sectors of the two cities show how the impacts of conflict can cascade transnationally causing a series of domino effects. They also highlight how the transnational processes, in this case migrant smuggling and TIP, are shaped by the local contexts through which they traverse.
This article was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, funded by UK International Development. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.
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[1] Irregular migration is a complex phenomenon that relates to social, political, economic and security dynamics in the ‘exporting’ and ‘transit’ states.
[2] The International Organization for Migration defines a migrant as: ‘any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status, (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is.’
[3] According to the UN Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone who has fled his/her country because of a well-founded fear of persecution and should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. Refugees are defined and protected by international law.
[4] ‘[h]uman smuggling is normally understood as complicity in, or the facilitation of, immigration in violation of local immigration laws and regulations’. See: Carling, J. (2006), Migration, human smuggling and trafficking from Nigeria to Europe, IOM Migration Research Series, No. 23, Geneva: International Organization for Migration, p. 9.
[5] Article 3 of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, defines TIP as: ‘The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.’
