BY MAKIKO KITAMURA, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

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Momar Ba is back where he began, with little more than a harrowing story to share. He is alive but still desperate. He has traveled from his native Senegal to Germany, Switzerland, Tunisia, and most recently, Spain's Canary Islands, each time hungry for work.

The father of eight children, Ba saved up $1,200, selling used refrigerators to pay a smuggler. That allowed him to join about 20 other Senegalese in early September on an eight-day boat trip from Dakar to the Canary Islands.

"I was willing to sacrifice my life to get on that boat to go to Spain," the 34-year-old Ba said in his apartment in the working-class Dakar suburb of Parcelles Assainies.

"Here in Senegal, life is difficult. We are not paid well [for work].
We get paid at most 60,000 FCFA (about $120) a month, and that doesn't work for us," Ba explained. "We can't take care of our families with such a small amount of money. That's why we were prepared to earn money elsewhere."

In 2006, 31,404 Africans, many of them from Senegal, made hazardous boat trips to illegally enter the Canary Islands, more than six times the number for 2005, according to Spanish immigration officials.

Of those 31,000, about 6,000 died or went missing.

Young Senegalese in search of better-paying jobs have been undeterred by the prospect of death at sea and a recent repatriation operation undertaken by the Spanish and Senegalese governments.

Even after years of illegal migration, the phenomenon continues to occupy a large part of the national psyche. A hit song this past fall on the airwaves was Mapenda Seck's "Barca wala Barsakh," which translates to "Barcelona or death."

While Senegal is blessed with political stability in a region that has been plagued by civil wars and coups in recent decades, it has an unemployment rate of about 50 percent. Seventy percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Sibling rivalry also motivates Ba, who has a brother living in Annapolis, Maryland, another in Milan, Italy. He said they have earned enough money abroad to buy homes for their families back in Dakar.

"I want to do the same for myself," said Ba, who pays 12,500 FCFA (about $25) a month in rent for his modest two-room apartment. "They were lucky. We were not as lucky," he said.

The Harrowing Experience

Once he decided to venture to Spain, Ba said he contacted a smuggler who lives in his neighborhood. The money he paid is shared between the man and five others who take turns steering the boats to and from the Canary Islands.

The voyage from Dakar began at 3 a.m. on a Saturday in September. Ba said he secured no papers to enter Spain and simply brought along his Senegalese passport.

"After two or three days, we didn't see any houses or land or mountains. We only had the ocean and the sky."
After several days, Ba said some of the passengers started seeing ghosts in the water. "At night, they said they were seeing women. We were all men in the boat. It was impossible. They started to go crazy," he recalled.

At one point, the boat's two motors broke down. Somehow, with only a hammer and a screwdriver "and God's help," they were able to repair one of the motors, and the boat continued on.

Finally, on the eighth day, after braving hunger and powerful waves, they reached Tenerife, one of the Canary islands, located off the coast of Morocco, nearly 1,000 miles north of Dakar. But what was waiting for them was not the so-called "El Dorado" of opportunity, but Spanish police. After confiscating their GPS navigator, they took Ba and his companions to a police station, where Ba said hundreds of migrants were being held. Others were housed in a nearby overflowing "welcome camp." Ba was detained there for 15 days. During that time, he said, he was given a roll of bread and a bottle of water for lunch and dinner and three sugar candies for breakfast. He was then transferred to a welcome camp on the nearby island of Fuertaventura.

"It was disgusting, dirty, and it stank," Ba said, and the Spanish policemen there were "mean," hitting and ordering around the migrants.

Three days later, their hands were tied with rope, and they were forced to board a plane."Some thought we were going to Madrid or Barcelona," Ba said. "But I saw the dessert from the plane. I knew we were going back to Senegal."

The Governmental Response

In early September, while Ba was at sea, the Spanish and Senegalese governments signed an agreement in Dakar to repatriate by plane migrants landing in the Canary Islands. As part of the agreement, Spain also promised to give $27 million to Senegal to fund job training and create economic opportunities.

Ba was given 50 euros and a letter from Spain's Interior Ministry certifying his return back to Senegal. Upon arrival in Saint Louis, a city 200 miles north of Dakar, he was given a sandwich and 10,000 FCFA (about $20) in transport fare back to Dakar.

The repatriation operation ended in mid-October after more than 4,000 migrants were airlifted home.
In December, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that over the next two years, 4,000 Senegalese would be allowed to work temporarily in Spain. This follows his decision in 2005 to offer amnesty to illegal workers already in the country. As a result, about 600,000 immigrants won work permits. French President Jacques Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a leading presidential candidate, have criticized the immigration policy of Spain's Socialist government in recent months. Zapatero and Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade also signed a joint declaration, extending by six months, a mission by the European border agency Frontex to stem the tide of migration toward Europe.

As the African continent's western-most country, Senegal is the base of the joint patrol scheme, which involves a fleet of patrol boats, helicopters and planes tasked with intercepting boats of migrants leaving the coasts of Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia and Cape Verde.

The tide of migration to the Canaries follows earlier attempts by Africans to enter the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on Morocco's northern coastline. Tighter border security has since discouraged migrants from making the trip. Instead, they now favor entry into Europe through the Canary Islands or Italy's southern island, Lampedusa.

Sibling Rivalry and Understanding

"You have to make an attempt in life," said Ba's long-time friend and neighbor Amadou Ndiaye, 32. Ndiaye said he respects Ba for his courage, though he would never make the trip, knowing the risks.

Like Ba, Ndiaye has struggled to find a well-paying job since he lost his last one about a year ago. He worked as a furniture maker for an Italian store owner for three years until his employer retired and returned to Florence. He now works as an unofficial tour guide at the central market in Dakar, like many unemployed young men in this city. They bring tourists to souvenir-selling merchants, who give them a commission from sales.

Despite everything he has been through, Ba is far from discouraged from making another attempt.
"Even now, I haven't given up. If I have the money and I have the opportunity to go there, I will leave again," he said.
Another attempt would simply add to a string of earlier ones. In 1992, Ba entered Germany and Switzerland illegally. Unable to find a job, he headed to Tunisia, where he worked in a restaurant. In a separate attempt to reach France, he traveled through Algeria, Niger and Mali, where he became ill and decided to return home.

In contrast, his brother Adama Ba, 39, has been much luckier in escaping poverty in Senegal. He entered Germany in 1989 on a visa secured by another brother, Lamine, a government official who is now minister of planning, development and international cooperation in Dakar.

Both Adama and Momar asked that Lamine not be contacted for this article.

In Berlin, Adama met and married a German woman and eventually earned German citizenship. He lived in Berlin for 12 years, fathering four children and working as a construction worker. He was the one who invited Momar to Germany but was unable to find him a job. Five years ago, Adama divorced his wife. After a brief visit back to Senegal, in December 2001, he came to Annapolis, Maryland, where Senegalese friends were working as gas station attendants. As a German citizen, he did not need a visa to enter the country.

He has been able to find steady work as a handyman and carpenter, earning about $3,500 a month, allowing him to buy a home in Dakar, where his sister takes care of his children. He sends $500 a month to his sister and occasionally some money to Momar.

"I told him [Momar] not to take the boat to Spain, but I couldn't change his mind," he said in a phone interview, adding that he understood his desperation.

Even though he apprenticed with an electrician, Adama said he never had a job in Senegal.

"People sell or buy, that's it," he said, referring to Dakar's abundance of petty commerce. "It's nothing there."
He has settled into life in the U.S. and plans to stay in Annapolis indefinitely, eventually bringing his children to live with him.

"I like it here," Adama said. "There are a lot of black people. I feel like I'm in Africa. In Berlin, the people there are mostly white. I feel more comfortable here."

As for Momar, who was not able to regain his old job, he shares his brother's bleak view of Senegal. "There is no hope here," he said, adding that "the government doesn't work" and that the upcoming presidential election later this month will be of no help.

"All of the money that the Spanish government has promised us will go to the elections," he said. "As for us, they just abandon us."

February 2007

8-Feb-07 | 6:41 AM
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Filed under: Profiles, Senegal, Spain



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