On the shores of Africa (Dickinson/TYG)

Members of the Senegalese community held a service in honor of twelve young men who had recently died trying to cross the Atlantic. The gathering was the first funeral in the neighborhood, but it would certainly not be the last, as men continue to leave for Europe each day.

It was no coincidence that there were far fewer men than women in Thianoye for the funeral. The same is true on Dakar’s streets and in many of its households. In communities across West and Northern Africa, young men go abroad in order to provide for their families. The most recent torrent of immigration from Africa to Europe, beginning in the spring of 2006 and continuing unabated, has strained communities and governments on both continents. While immigration brings workers to Europe and remittances to Africa, tensions in the communities follow close behind. Caught between economic needs and social realities, both continents—and their people—have coped with immigration ambivalently.

Homegrown Immigrants

The site of the funeral in Thianoye is only a five-minute walk from the shoreline. Just blocks away, disguised behind hanging sheet partitions, is a compound famous among young men because, at some point, it has housed many of them. In just a handful of rooms, 100 young men make their beds. Most are already economic immigrants, having traveled from rural areas to the urban job market. Here, they await yet another wave of immigration—this time, to Spain.

The Red Cross estimates that as many as 100,000 Senegalese, mostly young men, are waiting to depart for Europe, either driven by desperation or lured by the opportunity that Europe promises. Villages and cities up and down the Atlantic coast in Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya have seen an exodus of workers to Europe in 2006. Immigrants from coastal cities travel the 600-mile journey by sea. Those from further inland move north on land to the tip of the continent, where they take a short 9-mile boat ride to the Sea of Spain.

The immigrants’ destinations vary. Most popular are the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain, because they are close—they lie only 70 miles off the Moroccan coast. But they are also attractive because of a particular loophole in Spanish law. If immigrants are not processed and returned within 40 days of their arrival, the law entitles them to be released to the mainland. In June, local Senegalese newspapers reported that at least 2,300 immigrants were allowed into Spain under such terms. A year earlier, in 2005, Spain gave work permits to 700,000 illegal immigrants who had been living and working in the country for at least six months. The next generation of immigrants hopes that another generous gift of citizenship will follow.

Migration has become a way of life for West Africans. Young men are leaving rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa at a faster rate than they are in any other part of the world. A survey published in 2001 by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa estimated that urban populations in West Africa will increase from 14% in 1960 to an expected 60% by 2020. The prosperity of rural agriculture is waning, as young girls and, in particular, young boys—overwhelmingly between the ages of 15- 25—depart for the educational and economic prospects promised in cities.

Although the opportunities of the metropolis exceed those of many rural villages, migrants still struggle after their arrival in the city. Within the crumbling walls of the Dakar compound, boys spoke to one another about feeding their families—an economic burden that they bear increasingly with age. The boys, some as young as 10 or 12, make about $4 a day and $20 in the tourist season to send home to their parents in the villages. Three young men spoke about caring for as many as 30 dependents in their “elastic families.”

As they scour the urban job market for work with limited success, emigration is the next logical step. It is a choice fueled not only by economic necessity but also popular perception. Many of the richest neighborhoods are populated by families who have someone working abroad. The media has dramatized this reality, equating immigration with opportunity and exodus with hope. From popular music stars like Youssou N’Dour, to academics, to politicians, nearly every exemplar of success has spent significant time abroad.

Nor have national politics offered incentives for youth to remain in Africa. In Senegal, Morocco, and Mauritania, governments were elected by promising opportunities that have failed to materialize. “When a person does not have access to the economy, to healthcare, and to the human services that he needs to survive, how can we expect him to stay? The pressures are too great,” Moustapha Niasse, who served as prime minister of Senegal from 1978 to 1984 and from 1993 to 1998, told The Yale Globalist.

Palais, a Dakar youth who earns a living guarding a private beach, agreed with Niasse’s assertion. “Listen, 90% of the Senegalese, if they had the chance, they would go,” said Palais. He has lived in Sierra Leone and Liberia working as a tradesman, searching for a better living in other West African coastal cities.

Although emigration is not in his plans, Palais is familiar with the process. In the spring of 2006, a sea captain approached him, asking Palais to recommend hopeful immigrants to the captain. Immigration is a booming industry, and a prosperous network of human traffickers has appeared to serve the demand. Men can buy a trip abroad for several years’ worth of savings—anywhere from $500 to $3,000. Palais recounted the process: the Senegalese captain gives the immigrant a telephone number and hides on an island off the coast. The immigrants assemble at two or three o’clock in the morning to embark. Their vessels range from being wellequipped, with GPS systems and hearty meals, to being empty. Estimates vary as to how successful trips have been, but the BBC reported in September 2006 that between 1,000 and 2,000 men had been lost at sea in 2006.