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IOM Quarterly Regional Report - West and Central Africa: Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) January – March 2018

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POPULATION MOBILITY OVERVIEW

Three major mobility patterns shaped West and Central African flows in the last three months. The first is a pattern of forced internal displacement flows, mainly as a result of the Lake Chad Basin Crisis. The Crisis directly affecting nearly 4 million persons with more than 2.27 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 1.49 million returns in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

IOM’s DTM implementation is active in all four countries (DTM conducted by IOM Niger consists only in intention surveys, no displacement data is collected) and works alongside government and partners to track and moni-tor population mobility. In Nige-ria and Chad, in addition to providing figures on displacement,

IOM DTM is also conducting registration exercises to support direct programming. Intra-regional labour migration flows form a second mobility pattern. These flows mostly follow the main transport axis of the region as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regulations allow nationals from the community to travel freely between those countries.

Intra-regional migration, which has remained relatively constant over time, is the main mobility pattern observed by IOM Flow Monitoring teams (nearly 90% of all flows observed are internal to the region).
A third, inter-regional, set of flows has shown greatest variation in the last three months compared to 2017. These flows connect Mali, Niger and North African countries (specifically Libya, Algeria and Morocco).

IOM DTM teams located in the north of Mali and Niger collected data on migration movements both arriving to and departing various location assessed (Arlit and Séguédine in Niger, Gao in Mali) in 2017 and 2018. Movements observed between Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Morocco continue but some changes in the volume of flows have been noted in Mali and Niger in comparison to last year. In Mali, movements have been stable throughout the last three months (same daily average of 238 individuals arriving at FMPs in Mali in January and March) but are increasing compared to the same period last year (a total 283 arrivals to FMPs in Mali noted in March 2017 compared to 3,605 observed in March 2018). In Niger, movements captured by IOM FMPs have increased over the reporting period (daily average of 305 in January and 361 in March) but have decreased compared to the same period last year (13,218 individuals observed in March 2017 and 9,940 in March 2018). In addition, significant returns are noted from Algeria to Niger and Mali. In 2018 alone, IOM teams in Niger reported that more than 6,700 migrants, have been returned from Algeria. Additional returns observed from Mali have been accounted for by IOM teams (IOM Niger (April 2018), Statistical Summary of Returns from Algeria).

IOM DTM is active along the main migration routes of the region to capture and report on migration movements (whether they are intraregional or interregional).

Flow monitoring activities are ongoing in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Chad to collect data on migration movements and develop profiles of mobility patterns.

DTM is also active in various countries affected by significant displacements. In Mali, the DTM is a shared responsibility of the government and IOM. In the Central African Republic, IOM is also covering a large area of hard-to-reach regions to support humanitarian assistance, in the course of and for the purpose of which it is collecting data on displacement.