THIAROYE-SUR-MER: Salamba Ndiaye was 22 when she first tried to get to Spain, dreaming of a job as a real estate agent. Without the knowledge of her kids, she managed to board a little fishing vessel known as a sampan before being intercepted by Senegalese officers.
Ndiaye and the other people were sent up to Senegal a year later after making another attempt, making it off the beach, but this time a violent wind forced the ship to stop in Morocco.
Despite her two failed attempt, the 28-year-old is determined to try again. She said,” I do keep this appointment and get on it right now if they told me there was a ship going to Spain.”
One of the many fresh Senegalese who flies to Spain each year as a way to escape poverty and the lack of employment possibilities is Ndiaye, one of thousands. The Canary Islands, a Spanish archipel off the coast of West Africa, is where most people travel to establish themselves as a gateway to western Europe.
Since the beginning of the season, more than 22, 300 people have landed on the Canary Islands, 126 % more than the same period last year, according to figures released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.
Help employees in the Canary Islands claim they are increasingly seeing younger ladies like Ndiaye risk their lives, despite the fact that the majority of workers leaving Senegal are young people.
To prevent smugglers from launching vessels for Spain, the EU signed a 210 million euros cope with Mauritania earlier this year. The bargain has, however, had a small impact on migrant visitors at this time.
This week, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez may travel to Mauritania, Senegal, and the Gambia to address random movement. The primary starting points for migrants traveling by ship are the East African countries.
One of the deadliest routes in the world runs from West Africa to the Canary Islands. The Spanish immigrant rights organization Walking Borders estimates that the patients are in the thousands this year alone despite the lack of appropriate information on absences from West Africa.
Migrant vessels that die or encounter problems frequently vanish in the Atlantic, while others drift across oceans for months before being discovered in Latin America and the Caribbean with just human remains.
However, those like Ndiaye, who are desperate to make a better life for themselves and their communities in Europe, are certainly a deterrent to those who follow the route. ” Barsa wala Barsakh”, or” Barcelona or die” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages, is a common motto of those who brave the deadly route.
” Yet if we stay here, we are in risk”, said Cheikh Gueye, 46, a man from Thiaroye-sur-Mer, the same town on the fringes of Senegal’s funds that Ndiaye is from.
” If you are sick and you ca n’t pay for treatment, are n’t you in danger? Thus, we take our chances, either we get it, or we do n’t”, he added.
Gueye even attempted to travel through the Atlantic, but due to bad weather ended up in Morocco. He was then sent up to Senegal.
Before fish companies started to decline a decade ago due to overfishing, he used to make a good living as a man.
” These large vessels have changed points, before even children could get some fish around with a net”, Gueye said, pointing at the deep waters.
” Now we have to go more than 50 kilometers out before we find fish and even then we do n’t find enough, just a little”, he adds.
Gueye and Ndiaye blame the fish agreements between China and Senegal that allow foreign commercial fishers to fish in Senegalese waterways. Although the contracts place restrictions on how much can be brought in, it has been challenging to track what big vessels from Europe, China, and Russia can bring in.
Ahead of the Spanish prime minister’s attend to Senegal on Wednesday, Ndiaye’s family, Fatou Niang, 67, says the Senegalese and Spanish governments should focus on giving younger people in the West African nation employment opportunities to hinder them from migrating.
” These kids do n’t know anything but the sea, and now the sea has nothing. If you do something for the youth, they wo n’t leave”, Niang says.
” But if not, well, we ca n’t make them stay. There’s no job around”, she said.
