Niger's migrant smuggling hub empties after EU crackdown
AGADEZ - In a dirt-floored room in the town of Agadez in Niger, a pair of flip-flops and a cold pile of ashes are all that remain of what was once a teeming stopover for migrants preparing the fraught journey across the Saharan Desert and onwards to Europe.
Less than a year ago, Agadez was a boomtown - a hub for smuggling networks that profited off migrants seeking a better life and opportunities in Europe. But that was before the European Union, working with Niger's government, bankrolled a crackdown on the trade.
"We have seen the numbers fall dramatically since August," said Marina Schramm, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration, which monitors migrant flows at two points in the Agadez region.
"Before, we saw several thousand passages per week. Now we're close to zero ... several dozen," she said, noting that numbers normally fall in the winter, but not by so much.
