Rescuers have found the bodies of 92 migrants, most of them women and children, strewn across the Sahara desert in northern Niger after their vehicles broke down and they died of thirst, authorities said yesterday.

Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the bodies – 52 children, 33 women and seven men from Niger – were found on the route from the northern mining town of Arlit to the Algerian border.

Many were in an advanced state of decomposition and had been partly devoured by animals, probably jackals, he said.

Northern Niger lies on a major corridor for illegal migration and people-trafficking from sub-Saharan African into north Africa and across the Mediterranean into Europe.

Most of those who make the perilous journey on ancient opentopped trucks are young African men in search of work. Rescuers said the doomed convoy of women and children was puzzling.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it,” Alhacen told Reuters by telephone from Arlit. “It is hard to understand what these women and children were doing there.”

Rescuers found many writing slates in the luggage, suggesting the children may have been students in a Qu’ranic school being taken to Algeria, perhaps to beg, Alhacen said.

Alhacen said 19 of the group had reached Algeria by foot and were repatriated to Niger by authorities there. Two survived after walking dozens of kilometers (miles) across the burning desert back to Arlit.

The bodies of 87 of the victims were buried on Wednesday in accordance with Islamic custom, he said.

The migrants had set off in two trucks from Arlit towards Tamanrasset in Algeria sometime between late September and mid-October, officials and rescue workers said.

After one truck broke down, the second turned back to look for help but was stranded and the passengers tried to return by foot.

“The search is still going on,” the mayor of Arlit, Maouli Abdouramane, said by telephone.

Many people flee poverty in Niger, ranked by the United Nations as the least developed country on earth. Some work in neighbouring Libya and Algeria to save money before returning home.

The networks which send trucks across the desert also attract migrants from across West Africa who dream of a more prosperous life in Europe.

More than 32,000 people have arrived in southern Europe from Africa so far this year.

A crackdown by Spanish authorities has largely closed a route from the West African coast to the Canary Islands which drew tens of thousands of migrants in the mid-2000s.

Instead, most now try to make the Mediterranean crossing from north Africa to southern Europe, many losing their lives when their rickety boats are wrecked.

More than 500 people are believed to have died in two shipwrecks off southern Italy this month.

obadiah777: crazy mahfukaz. na dem sabi wetin dem dey find

the_ripper3:

The same life u dey live for UK. Why u no stay borno or Yobe?

obadiah777: uk ? bros i dey for agidingbi dey manage myself o jare

Sermwell: T

Hope dey are aware at home

me_for_you: Extreme hunger and poverty in nothern nigeria and sahel savannah. Yet the citizens of those place don't want to go to school saying it is haram

kwajahafiz: Sub saharan Africa remains a scourge for the rest of the world....Though it is clear that even if Niger has limited resources, which is doubtfull, It should still be able to afford for its citizenry with an astute and inteligence management, which sadly all sub saharan African countries lack.....Countries that fail should be able to hire successfull countries to come in and manage them for a stipulated contracted period...call it recolonization if you want. This is dire and has gone critical.

me_for_you: Extreme hunger and poverty in nothern nigeria and sahel savannah. Yet the citizens of those place don't want to go to school saying it is haram

johnwizey: Hope dey are aware at home

the_ripper3:

Obadiah777, our very own Ubert Angel, swear say u dey Agidingbi.