After seeing ten migrants die at sea, he now pleads: ‘Stay’

Moustapha Diouf, along with ninety others, was on a rickety fishing boat bound for Spain and watched as ten of them died one by one from heat and exhaustion.

Concerned about the health risks of the corpses, Mr. Diouf had to throw the bodies overboard. Five were friends.

It was at that macabre moment, seventeen years ago, Mr. Diouf said, that he vowed to do everything in his power to prevent others from making the choice he had and suffering the same fate: he would be there mission to prevent his fellow Senegalese from attempting to reach Europe and drowning or dying in countless other ways during the perilous journey.

“If we do nothing, we become complicit in their deaths,” said Mr. Diouf, 54, sitting in a dusty office of the nonprofit he co-founded, empty except for one desk and a few chairs. “I will fight every day to prevent young people from leaving.”

In 2006, the boat that Diouf boarded with his friends was one of the first of many pirogues, as the vessel is known, that set out that year from the coastal villages of Senegal toward the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago 60 miles away . off the Moroccan coast.

With their traditional way of fishing, they are no match for the industrial trawlers from China, Europe and Russia who had started combing the sea around them, Mr. Diouf and his fellow villagers could no longer support their families. According to them, migrating was their best choice.

In just one year, almost 32,000 migrants, most of them West Africans, reached the Canary Islands via this irregular route.

Thousands of others died or disappeared. The route was so treacherous that the motto of those who braved it was “Barsa wala Barsakh,” or “Barcelona or die” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages. Yet it was so popular that locals started calling places like Thiaroye-sur-Mer, Mr. Diouf’s village on the outskirts of Dakar, “international airports.”

Mr Diouf was one of the lucky ones: he reached the Canary Islands alive. But the whole experience was horrible, he said. He was imprisoned and deported to Senegal. Upon his return, he and two other returnees founded his non-profit organization known as AJRAP, or the Association of Young Repatriates, whose mission is to convince Senegal’s youth to stay.

In his quest, Mr. Diouf has enlisted the help of some high-profile allies: he wrote a letter to the country’s president, Macky Sall, but never received a response. He met with the mayor of Dakar, the capital. He even tried to go to Brussels to speak to European Union authorities, but was denied a visa.

But that hasn’t stopped him.

If the money is available, AJRAP will organize vocational training in baking, poultry farming, electricity and entrepreneurship, to provide alternatives to boarding a pirogue. Mr Diouf is also speaking to young people at local schools to correct the overly rosy picture of Europe often painted by those who made it there.

But he is painfully aware of his limitations. He does not have the capacity to offer anyone a job, and most choose to migrate anyway.

“We know that the European Union money sent to Senegal to create jobs,He said with quiet resignation in his voice. “But we haven’t seen any of that money.”

After the initial peak in 2006-2007, the number of people attempting to cross the Atlantic dropped in subsequent years. But recently the route has seen a resurgence in popularity, especially among young people struggling to find work, and among fishermen affected by their ever-dwindling catch.

More than 35,000 migrants have arrived in the Canary Islands so far this year, Spanish authorities said, surpassing the 2006 peak. Most of them came from West Africa.

Communities like Thiaroye-sur-Mer, where fishing is the traditional source of livelihood, are among the most depleted by emigration and the most affected by its dangers. According to figures collected by Diouf’s non-profit organization, 358 villagers have died at sea trying to reach Europe since 2006. There were years when local football tournaments had to be canceled because there were not enough players.

Last month, President Sall announced ’emergency measures’ to ‘neutralize the departure of migrants’.

Mr Diouf said the government is not providing any support to young people in his village and that the measures promised by Mr Sall have yet to materialize.

Aly Deme, 47, a fellow fisherman who traveled to Spain on that same ill-fated boat in 2006, said Mr. Diouf was “doing the government’s job.”

“He doesn’t have the resources,” he said. “But he does have the courage.”

Standing on the beach of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, surrounded by abandoned pirogues and nets whose owners had left for Europe, Mr. Diouf pointed to low-rise buildings, largely unfinished due to a lack of funds.

“At least one person in all these homes has left,” he said. “And in most families, someone died.”

He picked up his phone and played a video posted to TikTok, showing a group of ecstatic young people reaching a rocky shore in a wooden boat.

These were people he knew from his work at his nonprofit, and while the video was a sign that they had made it to Europe alive, for Mr. Diouf the news was bittersweet.

“I trained her to bake pastries,” he said, pointing to a smiling young woman wearing a colorful headscarf. “And the two boys next to her, in electricity.”

But they couldn’t find a job in Senegal.

Mr. Diouf, a tall man with a commanding presence and an almost brusque demeanor, has suffered many losses in his life, but he is generally reserved in expressing emotions.

His older brother was killed when his pirogue was sunk by a large fishing boat, Mr. Diouf said matter-of-factly, and his first wife left him and their three children because she was unhappy with the attention he was paying him. his mission.

But when he spoke last month about a shipwreck in which the ocean swallowed the lives of 15 people from the same local family in his village, his voice broke.

“Psychologically speaking, I just can’t bear it,” he said with tears in his eyes. But then he rallied. “If I can prevent at least one person from dying in the sea, it will be worth it.”

The task is daunting: 75 percent of Senegalese are under 35 years oldand young adults face enormous social pressure to earn money and support their families. But this is becoming increasingly difficult: inflation reached almost 10 percent last year, mainly driven by a sharp increase in food prices.

Atou Samb, a 29-year-old fisherman, has tried to reach Europe three times and said he would try again once he collected enough money.

“We have a lot of respect for Moustapha in the village,” said Mr. Samb, as he repaired a fishing net in the blazing sun. “He never stops talking about the dangers of migration. But words alone will not feed my family. There is nothing left for us here.”

On a recent morning at a local school, Mr. Diouf spoke to a classroom of 13-year-olds. Almost all said someone from their family had left for Spain.

“If your boat gets lost, you’ll all die,” Mr. Diouf said bluntly. “I know you all want to help your parents. But the best way to help them is to stay alive.”

The class nodded dutifully. But when asked who wanted to stay in Senegal after finishing school, only six out of 101 raised their hands.

Lately, even Mr. Diouf is finding it increasingly difficult to believe his own words.

“How can I keep telling them to stay when there are no jobs?” he said. “How can I keep telling them not to take the proa and apply for a visa, when my own visa application has been rejected?”

Perhaps the most challenging task of all is convincing his own children to stay.

Ousseynou, Mr. Diouf’s eldest, is 18 and tries to make a living fishing.

“I went to the sea today and found nothing,” he said as he stood in front of the door of their house, where he lives with fourteen relatives. “The whole week has been like this.”

“I’m leaving soon,” he said.