Mali — Flow Monitoring Report 8 (October 2016)

The IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) has started tracking the movement of irregular migrants in the regions of Gao and Segou (in Benena). Most migrants come from countries in sub-Saharan countries, and West Africa in particular. Most of the migrants are believed to travel through the capital city, Bamako, to the strategically located town of Gao, before heading towards Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso or Libya to reach their final destination, Europe, for some of them. Gao is an important transit point and is often preferred by many irregular migrants due to the relatively easy access of its routes to the Mediterranean. Benena is also an important point which migrants traveling to Burkina Faso to Niger in order to go to Libya pass through. In this data collection round, a vast majority of migrants were men, and 5% of migrants were minors. 2,193 migrants arrived in Gao and Benena, while 2,614 migrants departed from Gao and Benena. 37 % expressed the wish to go to Europe, primarily Spain and Italy. Algeria, Burkina Faso and Niger are major transit points after Mali. The vast majority of irregular migrants were nationals of Guinea (40%), Mali (20%), Senegal (13%) and Gambia (12%).