Migrants leaving Africa for Europe perish in the Mediterranean Sea, who is to blame?

We all recently watched migrants leaving Africa for Europe perish in the Mediterranean Ocean. Who do we blame? Do we blame their respective governments for not providing them with enough job opportunities?

Do we censure the Libyan government for letting them use their waters without any persecution? Do we blame Europe for giving us a way of thinking that it is too good a place to be as compared to our own motherland – Africa? Or bolder still, do we blame the Libyans for overthrowing Gaddafi – since in the Gaddafi era there was a strict watch of the passage of migrants from the Libyan sea ports?

Do we blame the porous borders that we have in the whole of Africa? Do we blame the African Union for keeping quiet as migrants keep perishing on their way to Europe? We have very many questions to ask on the migrant predicament.

It is not a surprise that most migrants from Africa come from Eritrea and Somalia – the latter is mostly anarchistic while the former has a very low GDP; the surprise is that Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Ivory Coast and The Gambia too has a good number of migrants traveling into Europe.

That Nigeria – one of Africa’s largest economies today, had 9000 migrants into Europe in 2014 alone is a worry and this shows that African governments need to do “more” to stop their citizens from making the dangerous journeys to Europe.

African countries should come together and help in the migrant crisis. They have to look at the options available; whether it is unifying Libya which has two parallel governments - this will in a way streamline the Libyan coastguards so they can intercept the migrants on sight; whether it is improving their economies so they can have jobs for their jobless youth who want to migrate to Europe or whether they should start a sensitization program for their citizens on the dangers of traveling to Europe illegally or whether it will be tightening their border security – something has to be done soon and fast.

It is also imperative that Africans start mobilizing their own governments from within to provide them with enough employment opportunities as well as sustainable living standards, because after all it is the dogma of the good life that takes most African migrants to Europe.

Migration crisis is not necessarily an African only affair as a number of migrants also come from the Middle East but that does not mean African governments can just sit back and watch their citizens drown in the Mediterranean Sea helplessly. Africans have to awaken their governments and let them know they are also responsible for the lives of their citizens or else the question; “Who is to blame?” will not have an answer.