Climate change adds to world clandestine migrant dilemma

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

DAKAR (AFP) — Migration from the world's poorest nations to the rich West is going to increase and could be speeded up by climate change, a top international agency chief has warned.

With growing numbers of poor Africans dying trying to reach Europe on flimsy boats and Asians paying "snakehead" traffickers to get them out of the poverty trap, International Organisation of Migration (IOM) director general Brunson McKinley said wealthy nations need foreign workers but must arrange a proper mechanism for their arrival.

McKinley is to appeal to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit this week for greater help as his inter-governmental agency, with 122 member states, launches a landmark project in Libya to help illegal migrants to return home.

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