Forced Migration and Crisis Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Historical Perspective

In Sub-Sahara Africa, urbanisation in times of crises reveal a category of displaced people who didn’t decide freely to go to cities, even if they could sometimes choose their final destination. Such urban dwellers were forced by unexpected circumstances to seek refuge in town. Historically, their displacement were due to a wide variety of reasons: captivity, slavery, raids, wars, natural disasters, famines, colonial conscriptions, land seizures, etc. Moreover, forced migrations did not always produced cities created ex nihilo. But rural depopulation in times of crises often contributed to fill existing towns. This article thus analyses the evolution of forced migrations towards urban centres.