Trans-Saharan Migration to North Africa and the EU: Historical Roots and Current Trends
Hein de Haas
Southern Europe is all-too familiar with irregular migration from North African countries such as Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Since the early 1990s, thousands of North Africans have attempted to cross the Mediterranean to reach Spain and Italy. But, as the migration crises in Morocco's Spanish enclaves in 2005 and Spain's Canary Islands in 2006 made clear, sub-Saharan Africans are increasingly migrating to North African countries, with some using the region as a point of transit to Europe and some remaining in North Africa.