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Agadez, Niger – Ousmane Kouyaté* stands close to a petroleum station on nationwide street 25, which passes by Agadez, greater than 900 kilometers north of Niger's capital Niamey.
The slim 25-year-old from Guinea is a “passeur” – a journey agent or, for some migrants and refugees passing by town, a smuggler who organizes their journey throughout the Mediterranean on the way in which to European shores.
Sporting sun shades and earphones beneath a baseball cap, he seems to be alert and alert, though he not wants to cover.
In 2016, Niger's earlier authorities, beneath heavy stress from the European Union, enacted the controversial Legislation 2015-36, which criminalized the transportation of irregular migrants to the north.
However issues started to vary with the July 2023 coup.
By November, the brand new navy authorities – the Nationwide Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, or CNSP – repealed the legislation, successfully decriminalizing the coyote commerce.
“Internet hosting and transporting migrants is again to regular,” says the younger Passeur with an air of satisfaction.