“They died little by little. First the children and then the women.” One of seven survivors of an inflatable boat that left the Sahara with 54 people and was adrift for 13 days before stopping at a beach in Mauritania tells the latest tragedy on the migration route to the Canary Islands, Spain, the most dangerous in Africa.
From a detention center for migrants in Mauritania, Moussa (the fictitious name he gives so as not to reveal his identity) remembered his “hell” of nearly two weeks aboard a semi-rigid boat, those who are swallowed by the waves as the sea gets rough.
Her case was an exception, Helena Maleno, a spokeswoman for the NGO Caminando Fronteras, Moussa’s interlocutor, told Efe that she saw dozens of rubber boats disappear shortly after the departure.
Helena is also a witness to how this type of vessel is increasing on the Canary Islands route, which further aggravates its danger. “1,000 kilometers. It’s the first time we’ve seen a zodiac hold that long.”, He says.
But the resistance of Moussa’s boat was not matched by that of his crew, who they were dying of thirst and hunger as the days passed, despite the help of some Moroccan fishermen with whom they made the crossing. They received, this Guinean remembers, two or three bottles of water for 54 people. It was not enough.
two brothers survive together
From a police station in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, an exhausted Moussa uses a cell phone borrowed from a neighbor to talk to Helena, who comes to feed them every day. There he is with three other traveling companions: two Malian brothers and a Senegalese. The other three survivors recover in hospital.
His nightmare began on August 3, when those 54 people, mainly from Guinea Conakry, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, boarded a fragile boat near El Alaiún (Western Sahara), built to shelter much less and with the intention to travel about 125 kilometers to the island of Fuerteventura (Canary Islands).
A day and a half after leaving, they ran out of fuel. They were not far from the coast and passed by fishermen, but none, Helena believes, called the authorities to warn that the boat was adrift.
The boat then continued its southward seaborne route and the lack of water and food began to wreak havoc. Its crew were dying “slowly”, explains Moussa. First the children (there were three) and then the women. Of the ten who traveled on the boat, only one survived, now admitted to a hospital in Nouadhibou.
“People fell asleep and died, others threw themselves into the sea”, revives Moussa and remembers how, finally, 13 days later, the whim of the currents took the boat to a beach in Mauritania. Upon reaching the coast, another three people died.
To the west, 4,500 kilometers of water
Moussa’s boat could have had an even worse result. The sea could have carried them inland, where 4,500 kilometers of Atlantic Ocean awaited them to the west.. In fact, this year, there are already two boats arriving half destroyed in Trinidad and Tobago with dead bodies on board. Most of them are swallowed by the sea.
Now, Moussa is afraid of being deported and left in the middle of the desert on the border with Mali, as Mauritanian authorities usually do when they have evidence of the presence of migrants of that nationality.
“Promise me you won’t take me to the desert”, he begs over the phone he lent Helena, who demands a more benevolent treatment for these shipwrecked people in Mauritania. “We ask the Mauritanian authorities not to subject them to an expulsion procedure, especially those victims of tragedies. They are devastated”.
On Moussa’s story, Helena makes another reflection. Believe that none of the fishermen who helped the emigrants notified the Moroccan authorities. They are, he says, afraid of. “I ask you to report it. Tragedies can be avoided. There is no need to be afraid, the important thing is to save lives.”
Helena does not stop receiving calls from relatives of the women who were on the raft. They expected to hear from them on Aug. 4, after a planned 24-hour crossing to the Canary Islands, but the news never came.
the worst is to come
If 2020 was a historic year in terms of the resumption of the arrival of emigrants to the Canary Islands, 2021 is doubling its numbers. As of Aug. 1, there were already 7,531 people, up from 3,185 in the previous year.
And the worst is yet to come. From the end of September, when the Atlantic calms down a little and the trade winds follow, the boats multiply.
Helena is particularly concerned about two things: Moroccan emigration, which has increased exponentially last year, and boats like Moussa’s.
“We saw an increase in inflatable rafts in the Atlantic, which did not exist before”, he warns. Moussa could see it in his skin and with what he’s experienced, he doesn’t want to try again. “I just want to go back to Guinea. I want to see my wife and children.”
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