To improve the information available for policymakers and humanitarian actors working to support people in West African migration flows, Integrity and its partners therefore completed a three-month research study looking at how COVID-19 and restrictions put in place to stem the curb of the virus have affected the vulnerability of migrants and refugees. Commissioned by the FCDO, the study brought together multiple sources of primary and secondary data to address the lack of reliable information and engage migrant and refugee voices in understanding the effect of COVID-19 on these populations.

Despite the challenges COVID-19 restrictions posed for conducting primary data collection, the study drew on 36 interviews with migrant and refugees in three key transit hubs in West Africa (Ouagadougou, Agadez, and Gao). We accessed these voices by mobilising existing field networks, allowing researchers to reach migrants and refugees remotely and conduct interviews over the phone. This helped protect respondents and researchers from risk of COVID-19 infection. To complement their direct accounts of their own experiences, we also spoke with leading researchers and humanitarian migration actors and drew on quantitative surveys collected with migrants and refugees on the effects of COVID-19 by the Mixed Migration Centre, an independent analytical institute providing independent and high-quality data, research, analysis and expertise on mixed migration, as part of its Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi).

The report found that mobility along main migration routes has decreased significantly due to COVID-19 restrictions. Most migrants and refugees interviewed for the study explained they were waiting for restrictions to ease so they could continue their travel, either to another country or back home. Those seeking to continue their travel indicated that smuggling facilitation, which migrants and refugees rely on to cross the Sahara Desert, had either slowed significantly due to increased border controls or become unaffordable. At the same time, channels for asylum seekers and refugees to access international protection have been increasingly closed off. Some migrants and refugees we interviewed spoke of being unable to flee violence and persecution for places of safety. Throughout the research period, travel bans and border closures constricted humanitarian corridors, with humanitarian actors recording numerous pushbacks and expulsions from Algeria and Libya. Refugee registration processes and resettlement programming were also all but suspended in many countries.

When coupled with the broader economic downturn linked to COVID-19, this decreased mobility has severe implications for migrants and refugees’ ability to avoid or cope with exploitative and harmful situations. Migrants and refugees often travel only with sufficient financial resource to complete their journeys. When they don’t even have this, they often engage in informal labour opportunities to fund the remainder of their journeys. Longer stays due to mobility restrictions are depleting limited financial resources, which is compounded by work opportunities becoming increasingly scarce or employers reducing wages. In addition to increasing levels of stress and anxiety, migrants and refugees spoke about how the financial implications of COVID-19 were negatively affecting their access to essential needs such as food, shelter, and basic goods. This was pushing some into exploitative, abusive situations. Meanwhile, states of emergency, measures to stem transmission, and the reprioritisation of humanitarian aid towards the COVID-19 response all limited the availability and visibility of protection services.