I saw this very interesting map on Global Threads, a blog from Oxford Professor of Global History Peter Frankopan.
It shows migration within Africa. Despite headlines and pictures of dangerous boat crossings, the vast majority of these migrations take place within Africa. Less than 1% of Sub-Saharan Africans migrate outside the continent. “In some cases, routes within Africa are more lethal than the highly publicised ones across Mediterranean itself.” These facts are obscured by the focus on European immigration.
The countries receiving the most migrants are Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and South Africa. Almost 10 percent of Egypt’s population are migrants though oddly there are no arrows there on this map. Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda are major host countries for refugees despite their own internal problems. The other takeaway is that most of this migration takes place within the major regional economic communities-the colored areas.
To not simply repeat Frankopan’s blog post (though it is well worth reading), I did some research and came across the International Organization for Migration’s annual World Migration Report. It is full of interesting graphics and as you scroll down there are flow arrows connecting the countries or origin (on the left) and destination (right) of migrants. The arrows are sized by numbers with the top five destinations (or origins) listed. Here is an example from Mali showing only one European country at the bottom of its top five destinations.
Looking at a European country’s (Italy) top sources of migrants, only one of these countries is in Africa. France has three (former French colonies) while Germany and Britain have no African countries in their top five.
This south to south, rather than south to north migration is in Frankopan’s words, “binding African economies and societies together in ways that are under-recognised in global debates.”
