Tamale, Feb. 9, GNA - The African Development Organisation for Migration (AFDOM), has urged the government to institute measures to curb the illegal migration of the youth to Europe in search for greener pastures.

The NGO, established to help stem illegal migration, said if the current trend of illegal migration was not checked, a huge number of the nation's productive youth, especially those in schools, would abandon their education to travel abroad.

AFDOM said this when it organsised a float on the principal streets of Tamale on Saturday to sensitise the public on the dangers of embarking on illegal migration to Europe.

Some of the placards carried by the demonstrators read: "Migration through illegal means is a threat to human life"; "Pay attention to your studies and avoid illegal migration"; "To Europe by road is a threat to your life; and "You can make it better in Ghana, Europe is not Ghana". Mr. Amin Munkaila, Executive Director of AFDOM, said information from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) revealed that thousands of Ghanaian adventurers were trapped in various parts of the Sahara desert. Economic hardships, inadequate education, lack of skills, ignorance of the dangers involved in travelling through illegal routes, as well as the 1995 increase in restrictions on visa acquisition, were among reasons for more and more Ghanaians embarking on such illegal routes. It said more than 30,000 Ghanaians were stranded in Libya alone seeking means to cross the Mediterranean seas to Europe. He said many Ghanaians after labouring hard to reach their destinations were living in misery as illegal migrants in Europe. Mr. Munkaila said on the average three Ghanaians were deported daily from various parts of Europe.

The Executive Secretary of AFDOM said recently 50 people on their way from Morocco to Spain with a wooden boat got sank on the high seas and only two of them were rescued alive.

In 2003, he said, 250 people from Libya to Italy with a wooden boat sank in the high seas with only three of people surviving. He said 60 and 20 of them were from the Brong-Ahafo and Northern Regions respectively.