Migrants Massacre: JIFORM Seeks Negotiations by African Nations

By Abiola Peters

The Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM) wants the recent death of scores of African migrants at the border of Spain to propel other African nations to emulate Sierra Leone on decent work negotiation as a pathway to reducing irregular migration from the continent,

JIFORM posited that given the ugly trends of irregular migration, time was ripe for serious African labour migration roundtable multi-lateral discussions with the European, Arabian, American and other nations to safeguard young Africans against death, abuse, and other forms of inhumane treatment.

Dr Ajibola Abayomi, the President of the JIFORM praised Sierra Leonean government whose minister of Labour and productivity, Alpha Timbo recently signed a bilateral agreement with the Saudi Arabian government that would guarantee protection and dignity of labour of migrants trained by the Slice of Success (SOS) Labour Global Investments, Ghana led by Dr Princess Kabuki Ocansey, a member of the African Union Labour Migration Advisory Committee.

“Yearly, Africa with the youngest population valued more than gold in the universe is not doing enough to provide jobs, healthcare, infrastructure, security, education, and other opportunities to rescue the teeming youths from poverty and guarantee their future.

“The sad occurrence at the border of Spain is a direct consequence of failure of the African nations to properly plan migration on the continent for continuous reaping of its immense benefits. Sierra Leone is leading the way for others to copy.

“The reality is that African leaders are failing to address the reasons why these migrants are so desperate to move to Europe and elsewhere. We sympathize with the migrants and condemn in strong terms the inhumane approach of the Moroccan and the Spanish security forces, by visiting terror on defenseless people.

“Irregular migration is a perilous journey that we are totally against and must do everything to stop, however so long as the adventurous youths are not provided for, they will continue to desperately move to where they can meet the challenges of keeping body and soul. The right approach is to discuss terms and conditions of labour movement of Africans to the Middle East, Europe, America and other places with sound legislation as it is being done in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Angola, Philippines, and others.

“That way, we will not only frustrate irregular migration, unplanned journey, human trafficking, sex trafficking and smuggling of migrants, but chart a pathway against slavery and achieve migrant protection with rewarding safe, orderly and regular migration embellished with economic benefits for all.”

Dr Ajibola averred that the recent inhumane treatment resulting in the death of over 51 Africans at the border between Morocco and Spain was a painful occurrence with no justification.

He argued that both countries were guilty of crime against humanity for lacking emotional management required by the circumstance, regretting that many African nations were to blame for exposing their ambitious youths to deadly missions by failing to meet the basic needs to guarantee the right to decent life.  

“We are sad that based on the footage of the incident that migrants seeking to cross to Spain were subdued to unthinkable and gruesome situations by the Spanish security agents. While we sympathise with both Morocco and Spain on the death of their security officers, we want to emphatically state that the genocide committed against the African migrants must not be swept under the carpet.

“We strongly suspect that this is a planned pure political war between Morocco and Spain given the diplomatic row between the two nations in recent times. We therefore say it is unjust to use migrants to settle their political scores.

“We hereby called on the United Nations and the African Union to properly investigate what the Moroccan authorities diplomatically called a “stampede” of people surging across Morocco’s border fence with the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla last Friday that resulted in this unfortunate incident.”

Founded in 2019, the JIFORM is a global media network with over 300 journalists spread across the continents covering migration matters and has been organizing an annual global summit on migration. In 2019, the organization was part of the media team and journalists that drafted the Media Charter on migration coverage in Tunisia at a global migration conference facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

In 2021, between February 25-26, the JIFORM in partnership with the serial international award winning Nekotech Center of Excellence, Ghana organized the maiden African Migration Summit in Accra, Ghana while on June 22-23 in Lome, it initiated the West African Media Migration summit.

The 3rd JIFORM Global Migration summit is slated for Toronto, Canada this summer. Having achieved an international reckoning on migration issues and capacity building for stakeholders, the JIFORM in collaboration with the Medgar Evers College, City University, USA will host the JIFORM Intercontinental Migration Summit in Brooklyn between November 1-4, 2022.