Too often migrants disappear without a trace and witnesses

The voyage from the struggling Senegalese fishing town of Fass Boye to Spain’s Canary Islands, a gateway to the European Union where they hoped to find work, was supposed to take a week.

But the wooden boat carrying 101 men and boys was getting blown further and further away from its destination.

No land was in sight. Yet four men believed — or hallucinated — they could swim to shore. They picked up empty water containers and wooden planks — anything to help them float. And one by one, they leapt.

Dozens more would do the same before disappearing into the ocean. The migrants still in the boat watched as their brothers faded. Those who died onboard were tossed into the ocean until the survivors had no energy left and bodies began accumulating.

On day 36, a Spanish fishing vessel spotted them. It was Aug. 14 and they were 290 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of Cape Verde, the last cluster of islands in the eastern central Atlantic Ocean before the vast nothingness that separates West Africa from the Caribbean.

For 38 men and boys, it was salvation. For the other 63, it was too late.

  • flathead@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    they said they left home because the fish are gone.

    This is what comes up searching for their town, Fass Boye:

    A waste of fish: Food security under threat from the fishmeal and fish oil industry in West Africa’ is a 2019 report into food security in the region. Greenpeace Africa is calling on governments to immediately phase it out to stop the threat to regional fish stocks, which are essential for the food security and livelihoods of local people.

    https://media.greenpeace.org/collection/27MZIFJ82G50O

    "So comrades, come rally

    And the last fight let us face

    The Internationale unites the human race."