BARGNY — In this fishing village some thirty kilometers south of Senegal’s capital city Dakar, the scene has become almost commonplace. On one October evening, a pirogue several meters long with over 140 passengers aboard set sail.
A few minutes later, a second and then a third were launched. In all, almost 500 people set sail that night in an attempt to reach the Canary Islands in Spain illegally. A perilous journey of over 1,500 kilometers.
Baye Diaune, a 38-year-old fisherman, was on one of these pirogues: “The sea was rough, so we had to turn back after four days,” he says, nervously chewing a match on dry land. To pay for his trip, Diaune had to sell some of his belongings, including his mattress and all his mother’s jewelry.
“I don’t make enough money from fishing anymore, so my parents paid for part of the ticket,” he confides. The average ticket price for the journey is 400,000 to 500,000 FCFA (around 600 to 760 euros), more than five times the average monthly wage in Senegal.
Record deaths at sea
In recent months, departures have multiplied: according to a document from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 32,436 migrants landed on the Canary Islands between January 1 and November 15, 2023. That’s 118% more than in the same period in 2022. Most of them come from Senegal, but also from Morocco, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
According to the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, 778 migrants have already perished on this route in the first half of 2023. A sad record deplored by Boubacar Seye, founder of Horizon sans Frontières, an association committed to migration issues. “Immigration is a pathology here in Senegal,” he explains. “But in recent months, it’s mainly the fishermen who are leaving: just look at the map of departures, the migrants almost all come from fishing villages.”
In Bargny, the elders agree. Among them is Abdoulaye Gueye, 58 years old, more than forty of them spent at sea: “A few years ago, we used to find a lot of fish here, but nowadays there’s not enough, we even have to buy frozen fish from Morocco!”
The old fisherman has seen many young people leave the village from this beach, where some twenty small pirogues wait in the sun amid the garbage. “Do you see all these abandoned pirogues? They used to belong to fishermen, but they went off and left them here,” he laments. “In any case, there aren’t even enough young people left in the village to go fishing on these pirogues, so they just sit there.”
Overexploitation of marine resources
These fishermen accuse foreign trawlers of emptying Senegalese waters. “The big ships fish our sardines with their giant nets, and what do we have left?” asks Gueye.
Several NGOs, including Greenpeace Africa, have denounced the overexploitation of resources by these “bulldozers of the seas”.
“With their nets, trawlers also catch small fish that were traditionally caught by fishermen, such as sardinella,” points out Aliou Ba, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace. “We need to reduce fishing significantly, to give fish time to reproduce and give resources time to regenerate,” he adds. “If we do nothing to slow down this intensive fishing, departures will continue.”
They practice destructive, indiscriminate fishing.
In December 2022, a report by the Dakar Oceanographic Research Centre on fish stocks in Senegal was already alarmed by the overexploitation of most small fish.
Senegalese fishermen often come across these steel behemoths several dozen meters long, which they accuse of fishing too close to their shores. Some of these vessels are European and fish under an agreement between the European Union and Senegal, which allows them to catch 10,000 tons of tuna and 1,750 tons of black hake each year, in exchange for nearly 3 million euros a year.
In theory, only Senegalese vessels, or those operated by a country that has signed a fishing agreement with Senegal, are authorized to fish in Senegalese waters. But according to a report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) published in October 2023, of the 110 industrial fishing vessels flying the Senegalese flag in 2019, some were operated by foreign investors through Senegalese shell companies, or “mixed companies”.
No respect of fishing agreements
These companies are based in Senegal, have a Senegalese figurehead, but are managed and operated by foreign investors. According to the EJF report, at least 29% of vessels flying the Senegalese flag are linked to European beneficiaries (Spanish and Italian), fishing outside the framework of the agreement between the EU and Senegal, and 20% are linked to Chinese beneficiaries.
“The company Sénégal Armement, for example, which is registered as a Senegalese fishing company, is made up of Chinese capital, invested by the Chinese state itself”, explains Julien Daudu, EJF’s senior representative in Brussels.
According to Senegal’s Ministry of Fisheries, no agreement exists between Senegal and China.
“We regularly ask the authorities for the list of joint ventures authorized to fish in Senegalese waters, but have never received a reply,” laments Greenpeace.
According to the Brussels-based Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, these trawlers have the greatest impact on local fishermen, since they are mainly out to get small fish: “These boats do not respect protected areas or fishing corridors reserved for small-scale fishing. They practice destructive, indiscriminate fishing, and also fish for protected species.”
Fishing employs a fifth of Senegal
Most of these fishermen leave their families behind when they set sail for Europe.
Mbatchio Faye’s husband sneaked away one October afternoon. “I went to the market with the children, and he told me he’d meet me there, but he never got there,” says the young woman in her thirties, sitting on her bed in the only room in her house. On the wall is a photo of her husband, yellowed by time: Babakar Gueye, all smiles, poses alongside a friend, paddle in hand. “I tried to call him the day he left, it rang for a few seconds and then he turned his phone off. He must have already been at sea, but he didn’t want to worry me.”
Babakar Gueye decided to leave when his income began to dissolve. “Before, he could earn more than 25,000 FCFA (around 40 euros) some days, but in recent months he’d been earning an average of barely 4,000 FCFA (around 6 euros) after a day at sea.”
When the fish was unloaded on the beach, Mbatchio Faye and the other women would collect it to smoke and scale it. “But there’s not much left these days, I barely earn 1,000 to 3,000 FCFA a day (between 1.50 euros and 4.50 euros) scaling a little fish.”
Babakar Gueye is now in Spain but has yet to find a job. So, to feed her five children, Mbatchio relies on the help of her cousins and her husband’s brother.
Here, fish supports a whole section of the population. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the fishing industry directly or indirectly employs almost 600,000 Senegalese, or 17% of the working population.
Setting sail for Spain again
Looking out to sea, Baye Diaune has only one idea in mind since his aborted voyage: to set sail again for Spain. “When the sea is calmer, next spring, as soon as I hear of a departure, I’ll go and see my marabout for his blessing, and then I’ll be off again!”
In winter, waves several meters high form offshore and can capsize pirogues. Most fishermen will wait several months before attempting the crossing again. In recent days, however, departures have continued. “A pirogue set sail last week with several students on board,” says Seye of Horizon sans Frontières. “At the moment, more and more women and children are boarding too.”
At least we had hope here in Senegal.
In Bargny, the town’s former mayor, Abou Ahmad Seck, agrees: “A few days ago, two town hall employees left for Spain; they don’t know the sea, they’re taking big risks.”
For would-be immigrants, there’s no shortage of reasons to leave Senegal: high unemployment (over 20% in 2022), the rising cost of living and a tense political situation since the deadly demonstrations in favor of opposition figure Ousman Sonko in June 2023 (23 dead, according to Amnesty International, and 16 dead according to the authorities).
To stem the tide, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, called on his ministers in early November to take “emergency security and economic measures.” The Senegalese navy regularly intercepts pirogues but is unable to stop the flow.
Abdoulaye Gueye, the retired fisherman from Bargny, says he understands the decision of those who risk their lives on the pirogues. “Before, we were already dreaming of Europe, but at least we had hope here in Senegal. Today, young people still dream of Europe, but it’s as if there’s no hope left here.”
