Introduction
This section brings together collaborative mapping, policy research, archival work, and interviews conducted between 2019 and 2025. It traces how migration governance operates across different sites: detention and violence in Libya; return and reintegration programmes in The Gambia; development initiatives; police and immigration institutions; and the actors, policies, and infrastructures that connect them.
The maps do not claim to be exhaustive. They are working tools developed through conversations with YAIM members and expanded through documentary, media, and policy research. They make visible relationships that are often presented separately: the experiences of people on the move, the institutions that govern mobility, and the wider systems through which European border policies are externalised.
Institutional Mapping
Mapping the Gargaresh raid
During the research process, YAIM members and Viola began by sketching the key nodes of the border regime as they emerged from participants’ accounts. This collaborative map reconstructs the raid in the Gargaresh neighbourhood of Tripoli, carried out by the Security Deterrence Force/RADA, and traces how several YAIM members were captured during the operation.
The sketch records accounts of detention, violence, transfers, and the different actors involved. It also became a starting point for subsequent policy, media, and testimonial research. Drawing on YAIM members’ testimonies and accounts from other people on the move, this research informed the more detailed investigative report presented in Episode 4 of Backway to Europe.
European Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) map
Development, Return, and Migration Management:
The EUTF in The Gambia, 2017–2021
This collaborative map traces the institutional architecture of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) in The Gambia. It shows how the Tekki Fii / Youth Empowerment Project cluster - focused on youth employment, training, entrepreneurship, and the “root causes of migration” narrative - operated alongside IOM-led work on assisted voluntary return and reintegration, migration governance, awareness raising, and border-related migration support.
The map links the EUTF, the Government of The Gambia, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the EU Delegation, European implementing partners, local economic and youth actors, IOM workstreams, and the development of the National Migration Policy. It also situates these arrangements within a wider landscape of EU migration cooperation and bilateral partnerships. The latter are shown as contextual relationships and should not be read as EUTF-only funding arrangements.
Solid arrows indicate funding or implementation; dashed arrows indicate collaboration or coordination. The map is an indicative representation of relationships identified through collaborative mapping and policy research; roles, partnerships, and funding arrangements changed over time.
Collaborative institutional mapping by YAIM, Viola Castellano, and Alagie Jinkang.
Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) map
Security, Governance, and Border Enforcement:
NDICI–Global Europe in The Gambia, 2021–2027
This collaborative map traces the implementation architecture of the European Union’s NDICI–Global Europe framework in The Gambia. It shows how migration-related priorities are integrated into wider governance and security funding through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the EU Delegation, the Ministry of Interior, the Gambia Police Force, the Gambia Immigration Department, the Office of National Security, and the National Coordination Mechanism.
The map also identifies the roles of IOM, DCAF, and GIZ in work relating to assisted voluntary return and reintegration, migration governance, police reform, security-sector reform, and border management. It includes the Spanish Guardia Civil and the COP initiative in relation to maritime and land-border cooperation, training, and operational support. It also includes the Frontex Analysis Cell and the Africa-Frontex Intelligence Community (AFIC), which relate to risk analysis, information exchange, and EU–Africa border-security cooperation.
This visualisation highlights a shift from earlier EUTF programmes that foregrounded youth employment, entrepreneurship, and development responses to migration, towards a framework in which migration management is increasingly integrated into security-sector reform, border management, readmission, reintegration, policing, data systems, and state-governance structures.
Solid arrows indicate funding or implementation; dashed arrows indicate collaboration, information exchange, or coordination. The inclusion of the Spanish Guardia Civil, COP initiative, Frontex Analysis Cell, and AFIC does not mean that all are directly funded through NDICI–Global Europe or operate under the same mandate. The map is an indicative representation of relationships identified through collaborative mapping and policy research; roles, partnerships, and funding arrangements changed over time.
Collaborative institutional mapping by YAIM, Viola Castellano, and Alagie Jinkang.
Bundung Police Station
Bundung Police Station in Serrekunda, renovated with support from GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), Germany’s principal federal agency for international cooperation and sustainable development. GIZ has worked in The Gambia since 2017 on projects connected to police infrastructure and security-sector reform.
These initiatives form part of a broader Security Sector Reform process, coordinated with the European Union Delegation in The Gambia. Officially, the reforms aim to rebuild public trust in security institutions following more than two decades of authoritarian rule under former President Yahya Jammeh.
As argued in an upcoming article by Viola Castellano and Gambian scholar Alagie Jinkang, these reforms should also be examined in relation to the European Union’s broader border-management agenda. From this perspective, investments in security infrastructure can contribute to the institutional conditions through which illegalised migration is monitored, controlled, and prevented.