Nigeria, Aug. 16 -- A few days ago, a haunting image surfaced on my Facebook feed that I cannot unsee; sun-bleached human remains lying half-buried in the arid vastness of the Sahara Desert. No plaques. No mourners. Just a silent testament to lives extinguished by thirst, exhaustion, and despair. These were not the casualties of Africa's intractable wars or natural catastrophe; they were migrants, ordinary men and women from the motherland, chasing the faint shimmer of opportunity across unforgiving sands. Their destination? Europe. Their ambition? Survival. Their fate? Death.

Yet their story is neither isolated nor anomalous. It is the refrain of a continent hemorrhaging its most vulnerable in a desperate bid for escape. Between 2020 an...