PREMIUM
ANGELES ESCRIVÁ
Tuesday, November 3, 2020 - 02:14
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It is a beach just a few kilometers from the city of M'Bour, famous in Senegal tourist guides for its fish market.
With the women spreading their merchandise on the sand or on low tables at sunset
, while the mules drag the carts out to sea and place them next to the cayucos so that the fishermen more easily dump the accumulated catch on the bottom of the boats.
There are no fish stalls on this beach.
About a hundred scattered people look with expectation at the parallel path to the shore of a huge half-full canoe
whose skipper fights against the waves to keep it barely fixed
without succeeding.
Some of them run around as if prying, with their chin raised, as if they didn't want to miss a thing.
Especially the children.
Several young people
lose their patience and jump into the water with their clothes
on in an almost impossible attempt to reach the boat, which continues to flow without being able to face the inertia of the waves.
They don't have a backpack, a bottle of water, or a blanket.
An hour later, the boat will be complete and will set off towards the coastal area of Saint Louis, where it will make a first and only stopover before crossing the Atlantic towards Tenerife.
That was the incident of the cayuco that
arrived in Canarian waters last Friday 23, with 214 people on board
, according to sources from CEAR, the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (195, according to the Red Cross).
It was detected by the External Vigilance Service (SIVE), the Civil Guard patrol, 6.6 miles south of Tenerife;
It was 24 meters long and the sides were painted with striking light blue circles and ethnic red and orange arabesques.
It was an almost festive looking craft.
But
its crew members had spent 10 days in the open sea without moving
from their seats, enduring the cold of the nights, so numb that if they had capsized, many of them would not have even been able to react.
According to the data collected by Crónica, it was the twenty-first boat that arrived to the islands in October,
the largest, the most striking and perhaps the most representative of a new crisis
that is subjecting the Canary Islands to a humanitarian challenge. and balances and testing the effectiveness of the Government.
As this supplement has learned, this year more than
400 boats
have arrived in these islands
illegally.
Of them, about 85 are cayucos.
Only in September more than 50 arrived and in October, 25.
Most of the boats that arrive in the Canary Islands continue to come from southern Morocco.
They are small boats, boats that carry from five migrants to at most 30, although this number, due to its large size, is usually rare.
However, as of September, large numbers of cayucos began to be sighted.
The Algerian and especially the Moroccan roads had been physically closed for sub-Saharan migrants, by Covid and by greater control deployed by the authorities;
and
the season
had been reached
when Atlantic conditions were the most benign
.
That combination attracted new vessels from West Africa.
They first moved from
Mauritania, then from Senegal and even further south from Gambia
.
Of all types and conditions.
The Mauritanian cayucos are white, of sober invoice, they usually carry from 30 to 70 migrants who come in many cases
from the conflict zones of the Sahel
, from where more than two and a half million people have been forced to flee.
The desperate migrants leaving Nuadoch or Nouadhibou come mainly from Mali.
And that is why, according to the NGO Acnur, "more unaccompanied minors, people with specific needs or belonging to groups in need of protection, who
escape from war or forced recruitment
or even forced marriages
, are detected
."
But it is those that leave from Senegal and the Gambia that have attracted the most attention, due to their bill and the number of migrants they may transfer.
The great cayuco in the port of Los Cristianos.
When the
first Senegalese cayuco
was sighted in Tenerife on 17 September
, with 83 people
on board, including 18 minors, members of the Red Cross, CEAR and the rest of the NGOs that work at the port to attending to the migrants, they had, after the surprise, a déjà vu and a premonition.
They recalled the avalanche of 2006, in which 41,180 migrants arrived, and
warned that this year the figures would exceed those of the previous 13 years
.
Since that September 17, the barges with striking lines and almost 25 meters in length have been followed until they exceed twenty.
This month alone, about 15 have arrived from Senegal and a few more from Gambia.
Life in Senegal has not been what it used to be for a long time.
It is true that the Covid has put
the last
straw
on the part of the population that lives off tourism
and has made things worse, but for several years now, large fishing boats from Europe, also from Spain, have
washed away its coasts and have left the local population without their main source of livelihood
.
This is the most widespread regret among the associations that see the youngest fishermen leaving for European lands.
But that regret and the highly publicized testimonies of those who were already in Europe and returned frustrated by what they found, at most they have managed to make those who organize the departures, mainly from Saint Louis and Dakar, take into account the weather conditions when it comes to start the journey;
little more.
The mafias that organize in Senegal and Gambia the illegal transfer of people fleeing poverty are
not as aggressive as those detected in the Maghreb.
They tend to be fishermen who own the cayucos, who are joined by four or five other people and who are seen by those who want to kill themselves as achievers,
in exchange for a price that depends a lot on the migrant's ability to negotiate.
"That amount ranges between 400 and 1,800 euros, but it is possible that one of the pilots needs to fill the capacity and a migrant will have the opportunity to reach Europe
for 200 euros,
" details an expert consulted by Crónica.
And not only that trip is negotiated, but also the attempts.
In the first months of 2018, access to Europe became easier and migrants negotiated with the mafias for a second chance if they did not manage to land in the Canary Islands.
In recent months, up to three exit opportunities enter the price.
"A part is paid and, once in Spain, the buyer himself or one of his relatives unblocks the payment of the rest of the ticket," he adds.
The Senegalese migrant gets on that fishing boat with nothing, just the clothes that cover him, and puts himself in the hands of the mafia that takes him and that will be the one that provides him with the water and food to last a week if he is lucky;
ten days if the sea faces them and
eternity if they make a mistake or cannot withstand such harsh conditions.
They and sometimes their young children.
A recent report by the IOM (International Organization for Migration) stated on the departures from Senegal to the Canary Islands that most of the people who get on a canoe are
young men (92%)
, but that women and men have also left. that
up to 42 young children have been embarked on that hellish journey.
In the 2006 crisis, Senegal was filled with demonstrations against emigration.
One of the slogans that was brandished was that "religion forbids suicide."
But now, those who travel challenge the sea with a play on words, "Barça or barksah", which when translated means "Either Barça (Barcelona) or death", according to the Infomigrants medium.
And the latter is what they find on many occasions.
Cayucos have been found with all their crew members dead, there have been boats that have been thrown against the coast in an effort not to lose sight of land so as not to get lost and a few days ago 140 people died (a figure without definitive confirmation)
when the cayuco that had also left M'Bour caught fire 80 miles out to sea and sank.
Those who know about this assure that the ocean route is the most risky of all.
“The Senegalese navy makes frequent arrests [from mid-September to mid-October some 400 people have been intercepted] and, once the boat leaves the coast, it faces Mauritanian waters, again Sengalese, Mauritanian, Moroccan, before get to the Canary Islands
.
That is why pilots prefer to go into the ocean
”, explains
José María Santana, CEAR spokesperson
.
Once at sea, Mauritanian vessels have to exceed about 500 miles, those leaving from the Gambia about 900 and
those from Senegal, between 800 and 1,000 miles (more than 1,600 kilometers)
if the starting point is Casamance, the area farthest.
«At a certain height from the ocean, the cayucos look for the Teide and head towards the Canary Islands, but if they become disoriented or go over and are not located, what awaits the people who have made the bet to face the sea is a slow death and terrible ”, recalls an agent of the Security Forces.
The IOM estimates the shipwrecks
of large canoes from Senegal
at six
, but surely the figure is much higher.
The biggest cayuco with 2020, the cursed year, on the side.
Among those who do arrive, however, there are young people who, despite the harshness of the trip and the risks, find themselves strong enough to use their mobile phones.
In Senegal there are WhatsApp groups whose users share the incidents of displacement sent by some migrants who,
when they are rescued and look relatively safe, send videos encouraging them to embark on the journey
and claiming that the sea conditions are unbeatable.
In addition, when they arrive, the Government of Spain, which is treating the Canarian issue with secrecy,
does not return them to their country,
despite the existence of bilateral treaties.
Well because they are requesting asylum - recently a citizen of Mali
managed to get the European courts to allow judges to process the applications
and this paralyzes any other initiative-;
either because, with the pandemic, the Executive has resigned or cannot.
The NGOs and the Red Cross do not believe that the number of people arriving in the Canary Islands - where the Cabildo has had to set up hotels - will exceed 40,000 from the crisis that occurred 14 years ago, but they have been warning for months of what could happen and
the situation It has only gotten worse.
In 2006, the Socialist Executive launched an entire offensive to mitigate the spectacular avalanche of cayucos that arrived on the islands.
He made returns and transfers to the peninsula;
reached agreements with the Mauritanian and Senegalese governments to carry out joint patrols with the Police and the Civil Guard;
he asked for funds from Europe to reinforce the authorities of both countries;
it got the deployment of the European agency Frontex and
even bought cayucos with funds reserved so that their owners would not use them for illegal immigration.
Agents stationed in Senegal continue to work, but cannot control a coastline of hundreds of kilometers.
So until December, when the sea is no longer navigable for these boats
, some 20,000 people could reach the Canary Islands
.
Those who were left with the best part of the absurd provocation to the sea: "Either Barça or death!"
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