中国气候变化信息网 China Climate Change Info-Net

Migration from the world's poorest nations to the rich West is going to increase and could be speeded up by climate change, a top international agency chief has warned.

With growing numbers of poor Africans dying trying to reach Europe on flimsy boats and Asians paying "snakehead" traffickers to get them out of the poverty trap, International Organisation of Migration (IOM) director general Brunson McKinley said wealthy nations need foreign workers but must arrange a proper mechanism for their arrival.

McKinley is to appeal to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit this week for greater help as his inter-governmental agency, with 122 member states, launches a landmark project in Libya to help illegal migrants to return home.

Muslim nations are particularly prone to the migration trap. Eleven of the world's 15 poorest nations are members of the Islamic body.

"Migration is increasing. More people than ever are leaving their home countries today" for economic, demographic and political reasons, McKinley told AFP in an interview Tuesday.

"You can see a steady upward curve over the last 50 years and especially over the last 20. The numbers continue to go up and that is not going to change any time soon. Climate change and natural disasters will also push up numbers," he said.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted millions may be forced to move because of coastal erosion, flooding and desertification in coming decades. The IOM says the most widely repeated prediction is 200 million people by 2050.

The deaths, concerns in developed countries about the numbers of newcomers, and worries about the future have all increased interest in the IOM's work.

"Migration is now a serious global issue on a level alongside things like the environment and energy. It is a big big global problem that nobody really knows how to handle," said McKinley.

One immediate priority is the wave of clandestine migrants from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

"They fall into the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are willing to take their chances and invest in a perilous passage -- a lot of them make it, some of them don't," McKinley said.

According to UN agencies more than 470 people are known to have died last year in the Atlantic and Mediterranean while on boats trying to reach Europe.

"It is the kind of practice that needs to be suppressed but you cannot suppress it unless you can open up some kind of safety valve," said McKinley.

"While Europe needs foreign workers, it is up to Europe to find ways to bring in workers through regular channels with the rights they need."

Anti-immigrant parties remain strong in some European countries, but McKinley said the European Union is "evolving" and now working toward schemes that would let workers come in for a limited time.

Italy and the EU have also financed a new IOM centre in the Libyan capital which opens Wednesday to help so-called "irregular migrants" -- many of them stranded after they were unable to reach Europe.

"Every week, dozens of vulnerable migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, come to the IOM office in Tripoli pleading for return and reintegration assistance," said the organisation's representative in Tripoli, Laurence Hart.

"Their dreams to reach Europe have failed or their life as an undocumented migrant is too fraught with difficulties," he added.

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in January announced the "massive" expulsion of all illegal migrants but the IOM said no widespread action has been seen.

Hart said the new Tripoli centre would be "open to all migrants who wish to return home in dignity" and could be an example for other countries.