Des migrations de pêcheurs de plus en plus conflictuelles en Afrique de l’Ouest = The migration of fishermen from more and more conflict in West Africa

This article presents the recent evolution of small-scale fishers’ migrations in West Africa. It details how migrant fishing developed with regards to the ecological, Economical, as well as political pressures that occurred over the two last decades. Migrant fisheries have successively welcomed: climate refugees in the 1970’s which were victims of the repeated droughts that led them to abandon agriculture; political refugees following the several political incidents that took place in the 1980’s and after in Mauritania, Casamance, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Liberia; and the inflow of ecological refugees that experienced a massive depletion of fish stocks in their traditional fishing grounds over the past two decades. It seems now that fishing migrations have reached their maximum carrying capacity while hundreds of young fishers have turned their canoes to Europe and ventured the high seas for an ultimate migration toward the Canaries’ Islands, along with tens of other contenders, and were qualified as Economic refugees.