IOM Needs Funds for Sub-Saharans

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched an appeal to aid donors to raise $ 800,000 to enable the intergovernmental organization provide reintegration support to up to 1,000 stranded Sub-Saharan African migrants who want voluntarily to return to their home on flights provided by the Moroccan government.
The IOM assistance will be provided to the migrants once they arrive in their countries of origin and will be in the form of support to enable them to start small businesses, or payment for a training course that will provide them with income generating skills.
The migrants – mainly from Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire – arrived in Morocco with the intention of going to Europe. But with travel to Europe becoming increasingly difficult for Sub-Saharan migrants, they are now stranded in Morocco with no work or places to live, says the OIM office in Rabat.
“Among the migrants are unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, women with infants and those with medical conditions who desperately want to return home,” explains Anke Strauss, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Morocco.
Since 2005 IOM has provided Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) to 3,500 vulnerable migrants in Morocco through a series of projects, the last of which was funded by the Switzerland and Belgium.  Funding for the projects ended in June 2012.