Crossing Hell
Samuel Aranda
AFP
On foot, by bus and by ship, African migrants leave their homeland because there is no future there, and because they are prepared to risk everything to reach Europe, believing it to be an El Dorado. They come from Senegal, Cape Verde and Mauritania, and try to reach the Spanish coast using every means possible. The crossing is an ordeal; it is sheer hell, but they remain hopeful in the face of appalling suffering and sometimes death. Young illegal migrants crowd aboard a “cayuco” or “patera” (large colorful canoes), or other fragile vessels usually used for fishing, and they set off on a crossing that will last for days in quite unbelievable conditions. This is Russian roulette: 40% of the boats that set sail are shipwrecked. Before the last-bid attempt by sea, costing 600 to 800 euros which they pay to traffickers, they have already traveled by road, crossing the western Sahara to reach the coast of Morocco on their way to Spain.
Preview
Migrants are refused entry to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco, and they fear the prospect of Spanish-Moroccan checks in the straits of Gibraltar, so they set their sights on the Spanish territory of the Canary Islands, setting off from the shore between Dakhla in the western Sahara and southern Mauritania. The destination now is Tenerife or Gran Canaria. Since January 2006, 10 000 young Africans have landed on the Canary Islands. But the route is longer and more dangerous than the others. The crossing can be up to 1000 kilometers (600 miles), an alternative that proved fatal for the 1 200 or 1 300 people who have already died at sea on their way to the Canary Islands. The lucky ones who reach the promised land are soon disenchanted: they are often treated as criminals and are kept in custody for forty days in overcrowded centers, in conditions often criticized by humanitarian organizations. Some are taken back across the border, and the return journey can sometimes be so inhumane that protests have been lodged by the governments of their home countries, demanding proper respect for human dignity. Others are sent to large cities such as Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia, and simply left in the street, without any money. Most do not even know where they are. The only document given to them is a deportation order proving they are illegal migrants – outlaws. In the Canaries, the end of the trip for some is a gloomy funeral service, a sterile ceremony held anonymously, with no witnesses, where the only record is a number on the grave, written by a finger dipped in the wet cement.
