By RFIPalled on 02-08-2019Modified on 02-08-2019 at 11:17

"Excellencies, members and leaders of Europe". Thus began the letter written by Yaguine Koïta, fourteen years old, and Fodé Tounkara, fifteen, whose bodies were found on August 2, 1999 in a plane landing in Brussels. That was twenty years ago. This Tuesday, July 30, a small ceremony of commemoration was organized at the Cameroon cemetery of Conakry. The families of Fodé and Yaguine, as well as several members of the Belgian NGO "Friendship Without Borders", made the trip to visit the graves of the two children.

Liman Koïta, Yaguine's father, is struggling to hold back his tears. Twenty years after the pain is still alive and the subject more than topical. " There are shipwrecked people in the Mediterranean. We always remember the message of Yaguine and Fodé. It hurts me a lot, because if the message of Yaguine and Fodé had been heard by the excellences to which they addressed their letter, there would not have been all these dramas today ".

" 36,000 dead in the Mediterranean "

The Cameroon cemetery looks like a little jungle under this tropical rain. Around the grave of the two children, members of the NGO " Friendship Without Borders " made the trip from Brussels. At the time, they organized the repatriation of the bodies of the two children. " It is especially important for us to" make visible "the effects of European policy on human lives, all this hypocrisy, also, borders that close in a more and more violent way, with the consequences that the we know. Since then, the situation has not improved. We are at 36,000 dead in the Mediterranean, so this is fighting that we must continue, "explains Loïc Fraitur.

A little behind, the mother of Fodé, Damaye Kourouma pronounces a few words of thanks for the organizer of the ceremony, Oumar Kourouma. " We have seen that, twenty years later, the message of Yaguine and Fodé, the letter is not yet understood. They asked for education and now we have problems with education and health, basic care , "concludes the organizer of the tribute.

The letter of the two young Guineans was widely circulated by the press in August 1999. © width.com

In their letter, the two children wrote: " At the problem level, we have war, sickness, lack of food, and so on. As for the rights of the child in Africa, and especially in Guinea, we have schools but a great lack of education and teaching. Except in private schools where you can have a good education and a good education, but you need a lot of money. Our parents are poor and we need to feed them . "

A march is scheduled this Friday, August 2 in the afternoon in Conakry, near the airport, in memory of Yaguine and Fodé.

Conakry: twenty years after the death of Fode and Yaguine, Damaye Kourouma the mother of Fodé and Ibrahim, his brother, watch the clippings of the time, recounting the drama. © RFI / Benjamin Moscovici

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