Senegal migrants threat Canary Islands and Central America crossings for a brand new life

As file numbers of younger Africans threat their lives making an attempt to succeed in the Canary Islands, Spain’s prime minister begins disaster talks with Senegal, Mauritania and The Gambia to deal with migration.

However this may come as little consolation to Amina.

“I discovered that my son had died on social media,” she tells the BBC from her residence close to Senegal’s capital.

“We used to speak on a regular basis and he instructed me he wished to go to Morocco,” the 50-year-old says.

“He by no means talked about he was planning to take a ship.”

She final heard from her son, Yankhoba, in January. A soul-crushing, six-month seek for the devoted 33-year-old tailor proved fruitless.

Then, in early August, fishermen found his physique on the opposite facet of the Atlantic Ocean, about 18km (11 miles) off the coast of the Dominican Republic.

At the least 14 decomposing our bodies have been on that small, wood boat, say native police. Cellphones and private paperwork discovered alongside them indicated that almost all have been from Senegal, Mauritania and Mali.

Among the many objects on board was Yankhoba’s identification card.

Dominican authorities additionally reported the presence of 12 packages containing medicine.

Evaluation is being carried out to find out the time and explanation for the deaths, though it’s presumed that the passengers had been making an attempt to succeed in the Canary Islands and had bought misplaced. Their boat was typical of the wood fishing boats typically used to move unlawful migrants from West Africa in the direction of Europe.

Yankhoba was his mom’s first baby and solely son. It’s a place which comes with an excessive amount of duty in Senegalese society.

The younger tailor is survived by his spouse and two younger kids, together with one he didn’t reside lengthy sufficient to see.

Earlier than Amina learnt of her son’s loss of life, she appealed for assist from lacking individual pages on Fb and requested social media influencers with massive followings to spotlight his case.

“I held onto the idea that Yankhoba might need been held in a jail someplace in Morocco or possibly even in Tunisia,” she says, her voice breaking.

Younger West African migrants making an attempt to succeed in Europe are more and more selecting the Canary Islands route over the Mediterranean different.

Regardless of the hazards, it entails only one step, somewhat than needing to cross each the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean.

Final 12 months alone the Atlantic route noticed a 161% improve in comparison with the earlier 12 months, says the European Union border company, Frontex.

Spain is among the European international locations that receives essentially the most migrants.

As for the folks leaving Senegal, a rising variety of them are middle-class staff in a position to afford the dearer journey to the US as an alternative of Europe.

That’s what Fallou did.

Regardless of working a profitable sheep and chook farm in Dakar for nearly a decade, he was struggling.

“I felt caught. On prime of working my enterprise, I used to be additionally working in a manufacturing facility, however I struggled to make ends meet,” he recollects.

So on the age of 30, he bought every part he owned and purchased a one-way aircraft ticket to Nicaragua in Central America. From there, he would try the overland journey to the US.

Fallou was inspired to depart by his older brother, already based mostly within the US, and by numerous photos and movies of Senegalese folks on TikTok sharing their trek by way of Central America.

“My mom didn’t need me to go, however I used to be able to face loss of life,” he says.

Fallou travelled for 16 days, passing by way of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, with the assistance of smugglers. In whole he spent greater than $10,000 (£7,600) on the journey.

In contrast, poorer migrants who take the boat from Senegal to the Canary Islands usually pay smugglers round $450.

Fallou says that his sacrifice got here with its share of horrors.

“A number of folks died earlier than my eyes,” he says.

“However I noticed some ladies who stored going, even with their kids on their backs, and I believed: ‘I’ve to remain sturdy.’”

After being held in a US detention camp for just a few days, Fallou was finally given depart to stay as an asylum seeker. He has since been reunited along with his brother and now works as a mechanic.

Fallou was fortunate, however many African migrants to the US are usually not.

Final September, greater than 140 Senegalese folks have been deported again residence after crossing the Mexico-US border.

Human rights teams and diaspora communities who help the brand new arrivals report that shelters are sometimes overwhelmed with such circumstances.

Some migrants haven’t any choice however to sleep on the road. Others could also be allowed to remain briefly in mosques.

Regardless of West Africans’ rising curiosity in different migration routes, it’s nonetheless the case that almost all African migrants try to succeed in Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.

During the last decade, the UN’s migration physique (IOM) says greater than 28,000 migrants have drowned in that one physique of water alone.

“Individuals are leaving [West Africa] as a result of they’re confronted with an explosive cocktail of safety, institutional, dietary, sanitary, post-Covid and environmental issues,” says immigration professional Aly Tandian.

The variety of folks leaving Senegal specifically is rising, regardless of being a comparatively peaceable nation with a brand new president who’s promising to create jobs for younger folks.

For the reason that new authorities was elected in March, it has succeeded in lowering the value of some fundamental requirements, together with oil, bread and rice – due to this fact easing the cost-of-living squeeze.

However it isn’t sufficient.

“All of us thought that the hope raised by the change of regime would halt the resurgence of those migratory flows, however sadly this has not been the case,” says Boubacar Sèye, head of the non-government organisation, Horizon With out Borders.

“Despair and doubt have permeated our sociological setting, to the purpose the place folks not consider that their future might be fulfilled right here,” he provides.

Mr Sèye has written a proper letter to the Senegalese authorities, pleading for an investigation into what occurred to the boat discovered off the Dominican Republic.

He says studies present “there’s a prison financial system surrounding these irregular migrations. Trafficking in medicine, arms, human beings and in addition organs”.

In July, after 89 our bodies have been present in a ship off the Mauritanian coast, Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko made a public plea to younger folks to not take the perilous Atlantic path to Europe.

“The way forward for the world lies in Africa, and also you, younger folks want to concentrate on that,” he stated.

But, for the massive variety of younger Africans nonetheless risking their lives to succeed in Europe and the US, that future is anyplace however at residence.