While many in Europe express shock at former US President Donald Trump's harsh immigration tactics, the European Union's own decade-long, aggressive crackdown on irregular African migrants reveals a similarly troubling picture. Fleeing conflict, climate disasters, and deep poverty, thousands risk everything on perilous sea journeys, only to face a fortified and often hostile continent.
The Human Cost of Securing Borders
The EU's strategy has created a humanitarian crisis with a staggering death toll. According to Amnesty International, the bloc's externalisation policy and hostility from Italy and Malta towards rescue ships led to 721 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean in just two months in 2018. The tragedy has continued, with several European rescue organisations blaming an EU decree in 2023 for partly causing the deaths of 3,000 people that year by restricting rescue capacity.
The situation is compounded by partnerships with autocratic regimes. A leaked 2024 European External Action Service report warned that supporting Tunisia's crackdown damaged the EU's reputation. The European Court of Auditors also criticised the bloc's €5 billion Emergency Trust Fund for Africa for failing to address human-rights risks when working with regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. In 2024 alone, over 2,000 African migrants died trying to reach Europe.
The cruelty is systemic. The Libyan coast guard has subjected migrants to "unimaginable horrors" including torture and enslavement. Tunisian security forces have been accused of rape, beating children, and desert dumping. Within the EU, Frontex was implicated in covering up illegal pushbacks, Polish guards forced migrants into Belarus where they were abused, and three Egyptian teens froze to death after Bulgarian officers reportedly obstructed their rescue.
A Stark Divide in Perspectives
The political view in Europe contrasts sharply with African realities. The rise of far-right populism from Sweden to Italy has pushed mainstream parties toward xenophobic policies, framing migrants as a security threat. Meanwhile, African governments highlight that they host the overwhelming burden of displacement: of over 45 million forcibly displaced Africans in 2025, 34.5 million remained within their own countries.
African nations also oppose forced returns for economic reasons. Remittances from African migrants in Europe are a lifeline, reaching $100 billion in 2022—more than total official development aid and foreign direct investment combined. However, the EU's response has been to leverage its economic power to curb migration, not bolster African growth. Its 2016 Migration Partnership Framework, backed by €500 million, tied development aid for countries like Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal directly to migration reduction goals.
A Flawed and Inhumane Approach
Now, the European Commission seeks to harden this approach. A leaked proposal for the next budget cycle suggests conditioning development aid on meeting strict migration-reduction targets. This comes despite a 20% drop in arrivals in early 2025, a decline achieved after years of human-rights abuses by third-country partners paid to slow movement.
A 2019 UNDP report, interviewing 1,970 African migrants in 13 EU states, found they were typically more educated than average at home and had jobs, but 62% did not earn enough to "get by." Young Africans, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under 30, flee a lack of opportunity, not a lack of ambition. The EU's current policy fails to address these root causes—poor governance, political exclusion, and economic failure—choosing instead to fund border hardening by repressive regimes.
This cynical strategy erodes the EU's moral standing. If Europe wishes to be a global force for good, it must pursue migration policies rooted in shared humanity, not self-interest. Reducing migration requires genuine investment in Africa's development and job creation, not using aid as a stick to punish nations for the movement of their people.
