This snapshot provides a context-specific and evidence-based understanding of migrants’ use of smugglers in the Central Sahel. It highlights the range of smuggling services that migrants rely on to facilitate their journeys and examines the various roles smugglers play across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. This snapshot also explores migrants’ perceptions of their interactions with smugglers. Additionally, it offers a comparative perspective to a 2021 publication that examined the prevalence and roles of smugglers along mixed migration routes in Mali, Niger and Libya.

This snapshot is based on 1,913 surveys conducted with migrants who used smuggler services in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

This snapshot is part of a series of 2025 MMC publications examining human smuggling trends in the Central Sahel.

Gendered smuggler-migrant interactions in the Central Sahel