The Lake Chad Basin: A migratory zone polarized by Libya?

Abstract

The past decade has seen significant migratory flows from sub-Saharan Africa toward Libya. However, while Libya embraces the entire African continent in official discourse, this migratory space is constituted through relations with the states of the Lake Chad Basin, and especially Sudan, Chad, and Niger. The emergence of this new migratory zone is analyzed by the author through its constitutive practices of the twentieth century, its increasingly important place in multilateral relations between Libya and the states of the region, as well as its impact on Saharan-Sahelian towns.