More international migrants move within Africa than beyond the continent
As of 2017, over 19 million Africans lived outside their country of birth but still within the continent. An additional 17 million Africans have migrated from the continent since birth. The bulk of these emigrants have gone to Europe (55 per cent) and to Asia (26 per cent), mostly the Gulf States. While this inter-continental emigration is driven mostly by countries in Northern Africa, in both Eastern Africa and Western Africa, migration is primarily contained within the region: Around 70 percent of migrants in each area stayed within the same region.
1 in 4 international migrants in Africa is a child – 6.5 million in total
Africa has the largest share of children among its migrant population – over one in four immigrants in Africa is a child, more than twice the global average. The share is particularly large in Western and Eastern Africa, where in countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya children account for more than 40 per cent of immigrant population. These countries also host some of the largest child migrant populations in Africa in absolute terms – the largest housed by South Africa with 642 thousand migrants under the age of 18 in 2017.
