Abuja, Benin City – ESI in Nigeria

Kristof with Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora. Photo: ESI

ESI's deputy chairman Kristof Bender participated in a research trip to Nigeria from 9 to 14 July 2018, organised by the Migration Strategy Group on International Cooperation and Development, an initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Robert Bosch Stiftung. 

The group met with Nigerian authorities, civil society organisations, international organisations and diplomatic representations. 

Over the last years, Nigerians have been the largest group arriving on the central Mediterranean route. Some 60% of the Nigerians that try to cross the Mediterranean come from Edo State, hosting only about 2% of the total population. So Kristof and his colleagues also visted Benin City, the capital of Edo State to meet with returnees, NGOs working on re-integration and the Edo State Task Force against Human Trafficking.

In Abuja Kristof also shared some of ESI's ideas on future European asylum policy and the future of migration with Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora. 

Here you can find some photos from the trip to Benin City and Abuja. 

• ESI core facts: The Italian Magnet – Deaths, arrivals and returns in the Central Mediterranean (13 March 2018)
• Refugees Deeply, John Dalhuisen Gerald Knaus, How Italy Can Combine Migration Control With Human Rights (13 March 2018)
• ESI proposals for the refugee crises in the Central Mediterranean and the Aegean: www.esiweb.org/refugees
• Media reactions to ESI refugee proposals

At the Girl's Power Initiative in Benin City. Photo: ESI