THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER6, 2021 39
its Parliament. (A spokesperson for the
Trust Fund told me, “Our programs are
intended to save lives, protect those in
need, and fight trafficking in human
beings and migrant smuggling.”)
Minniti looked to Libya—by then
a failed state—to become Europe’s pri-
mary partner in stopping the flow of
migrants. In 2017, he travelled to Trip-
oli and struck deals with the govern-
ment recognized in the country at the
time and with the most powerful mi-
litias. Italy, backed by E.U. funds, signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with
Libya, affirming “the resolute determi-
nation to coöperate in identifying ur-
gent solutions to the issue of clandes-
tine migrants crossing Libya to reach
Europe by sea.” The Trust Fund has di-
rected half a billion dollars to Libya’s
assault on migration. Marghani, the
former justice minister, told me that
the goal of the program is clear: “Make
Libya the bad guy. Make Libya the dis-
guise for their policies while the good
humans of Europe say they are offer-
ing money to help make this hellish
system safer.”
Minniti has said that the European
fear of unchecked migration is a “le-
gitimate feeling—one democracy needs
to listen to.” His policies have resulted
in a stark drop in migrants. In the first
half of this year, fewer than twenty-one
thousand people made it to Europe by
crossing the Mediterranean. Minniti
told the press in 2017, “What Italy didin Libya is a model to deal with mi-
grant flows without erecting borders
or barbed wire barriers.” (Minniti has
since left government and now heads
the Med-Or Foundation, an organi-
zation founded by an Italian defense
contractor; he did not respond to re-
quests for comment for this piece.) It-
aly’s right wing, which helped unseat
Renzi, applauded Minniti’s work.
“When we proposed such measures,
we were labelled as racist,” Matteo Sal-vini, then the leader of Italy’s North-
ern League, a nationalist party, said.
“Now, finally, everyone seems to un-
derstand we were right.”A
liou Candé grew up on a farm
near the village of Sintchan
Demba Gaira. It has no cell reception,
paved roads, plumbing, or electricity.
As an adult, he worked the farm with
his family, and lived in a clay house,
painted yellow and blue, with his wife,
Hava, and their two young sons. He
listened to foreign musicians and fol-
lowed European soccer clubs; he spoke
English and French, and was teaching
himself Portuguese, hoping one day to
live in Portugal. Jacaria, one of Can-
dé’s three brothers, told me, “Aliou was
a very lovely boy—never in any trou-
ble. He was a hard worker. People re-
spected him.”
Candé’s farm produced cassava, man-
goes, and cashews—a crop that accounts
for around ninety per cent of Guinea-
Bissau’s exports. But local weather pat-
terns had begun to shift, likely as a re-
sult of climate change. “We don’t feel
the cold during the cold season any-
more, and the heat comes earlier than
it should,” Jacaria said. Heavy rains left
the farm accessible only by canoe for
much of the year; dry spells seemed to
last longer than they had a generation
earlier. Candé had four skinny cows
that produced little milk. There were
more mosquitoes, which spread disease.
When one of Candé’s sons came down
with malaria, the journey to the hospi-
tal took a day, and he almost died.
Candé, a pious Muslim, worried that
he was failing before God to provide
for his family. “He felt guilty and en-
vious,” Bobo, another of Candé’s broth-
ers, told me. Jacaria had immigrated to
Spain, and Denbas, the third brother,
to Italy. Both sent money and photo-
graphs of fancy restaurants. Candé’s fa-
ther, Samba, told me, “Whoever goes
abroad brings fortune at home.” Hava
was eight months pregnant, but Can-
dé’s family encouraged him to go to
Europe, too, promising that they would
look after his children. “All the people
of his generation went abroad and suc-
ceeded,” his mother, Aminatta, said.
“So why not him?” On the morning of
September 13, 2019, Candé set out for
Europe carrying a Quran, a leathernot sustain the undertaking. Efforts in
Italy and Greece to relocate migrants
floundered. Poland and Hungary, both
run by far-right leaders, accepted no
migrants at all. Officials in Austria
talked of building a wall on its Italian
border. Italy’s hard-right politicians
mocked and denounced Renzi, and
their poll numbers skyrocketed. In De-
cember, 2016, Renzi resigned, and his
party eventually rolled back his poli-
cies. He, too, retreated from his initial
generosity. “We need to free ourselves
from a sense of guilt,” he said. “We do
not have the moral duty to welcome to
Italy people who are worse off than
ourselves.”
During the next several years, Eu-
rope embarked on a different approach,
led by Marco Minniti, who became It-
aly’s Minister of the Interior in 2016.
Minniti, a onetime ally of Renzi’s, was
frank about his colleague’s miscalcula-
tion. “We did not respond to two feel-
ings that were very strong,” he said.
“Anger and fear.” Italy stopped con-
ducting search-and-rescue operations
beyond thirty miles from its shores.
Italy, Greece, Spain, and Malta began
turning away humanitarian boats car-
rying rescued migrants, and Italy even
charged the captains of such boats with
aiding human trafficking. Minniti soon
became known as the “Minister of Fear.”
In 2015, the E.U. created the Emer-
gency Trust Fund for Africa, which has
since spent nearly six billion dollars.
Proponents argue that the program of-
fers aid money to developing countries,
paying for COVID-19 relief in Sudan
and green-energy job training in Ghana.
But much of its work involves pressur-
ing African nations to adopt tougher
immigration restrictions and funding
the agencies that enforce them. In 2018,
officials in Niger allegedly sent “shop-
ping lists” requesting gifts of cars, planes,
and helicopters in exchange for their
help in pushing anti-immigrant poli-
cies. The program has also supported
repressive state agencies, by financing
the creation of an intelligence center
for Sudan’s secret police, and by allow-
ing the E.U. to give the personal data
of Ethiopian nationals to their coun-
try’s intelligence service. The money is
doled out at the discretion of the E.U.’s
executive branch, the European Com-
mission, and not subject to scrutiny by