SENEGAL: "No wall in the sea"

DAKAR, 7 September (IRIN) - So far this year, 20,000 illegal migrants have arrived in the Spanish Canary Islands from the West African coast in the hopes of eventually reaching mainland Spain.

The Spanish Red Cross estimates that more than 1,000 migrants have drowned trying to reach the archipelago.

Despite the risks, many young West Africans, frustrated by the limited opportunities at home and tempted by the stories of those who have made it, continue to embark on the journey.

This is the second of a series of three profiles of Senegalese migrants.

ASSANE DIA, 25

Assane Dia can already picture himself in Valencia, Spain's bustling eastern coastal city. There, he believes, he would find work far more lucrative and satisfying than his job as a car painter in Dakar. Despite the poor salary and lack of job security, he has stuck with it for nine years because he has little other choice.

"You can be a month without any work, and when there is some it's the boss who makes a profit, leaving you with the crumbs," he said. "Here, you work to death without accomplishing anything. At some point you have to take a risk for something more."

Then a friend who had migrated to Italy offered to help pay the US $600 that traffickers were asking to take Assane to the Canaries on their fishing boats. It was a bargain, a special rate offered by the boatmen because he knew them.

Assane's family begged him not to go.

"My parents believe that the sea is unsafe, and it was difficult to listen to their concerns," he said. "For a week I hesitated but then decided to go."

He made the roughly 1,500 km journey but was detained shortly after his arrival on the Canary Islands and repatriated to Senegal.

Upon his return, his father confiscated his passport and has been making the rounds at various embassies trying to get his son a visa so Assane can travel legally and safely to Europe. So far, no country has given Assane a visa.

In the meantime, Assane continues to work painting cars and dreaming of leaving again.

The short time he spent in the Canary Islands, even if it was simply playing soccer with the other illegal migrants at a detaining camp, convinced him Assane that life is better in Europe.

"I tell myself that the voyage is risky but as soon as you arrive you forget all that suffering, even for those that arrive exhausted, they are taken away on stretchers," he said.

"It is only decent jobs that will fix this situation, not the untimely declarations of politicians, which only further encourage illegal migration," he said. "It's because they don't stop talking about how they are going to fix things that youths keep leaving. The youth have become disillusioned. I don't see how they can build a wall in the sea to keep the boats at bay."

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