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The town that lost 11 young people from the same family at sea

2020-12-29T20:43:49.282Z


Gantour, in the north of Senegal, mourns the boys who died of hunger and thirst in a canoe: "Those who are not satisfied are leaving"


It was October 31st.

A cell phone was ringing in Gantour, a town in northern Senegal.

"They are dead, they are all dead," said a voice on the other end of the phone.

The news was jumping from mouth to mouth, from house to house, it traveled the sandy streets like a snake.

They say that the screams of despair and crying made it difficult to hear the words and that the looks of the parents were enough to understand.

Mohamed, the son of Aminata;

Modou, who leaves behind a wife and two children;

Baye Djibi, Alioune, Serigne Modou, Souleymane, Abou ... 11 young members of the same family, cousins, uncles and nephews, between 18 and 30 years old, all died in a canoe heading to the Canary Islands and their bodies were thrown into the sea for their fellow travelers as they succumbed to hunger and thirst.

Pape Ousmane Mbengue, 22, would return to the village after each school year to farm his father's land.

With a lot of effort he had done the most difficult, finish his scientific baccalaureate and get a place at a French university.

That is why it was not expected that he would be denied a visa to go to France.

When he heard that his cousins ​​and friends were leaving for Spain in a cayuco, he did not think twice and put his life in the hands of God.

All for finishing his studies.

Anyway.

His mother, Khady Gueye, learned that he had left with that call.

Still can't believe it.

"It is very hard.

Pape Ousmane was our hope, we had a lot of confidence in him.

His death has overwhelmed me.

Sometimes when I'm alone I spend my time crying.

I am disappointed and dejected, we were sure that I was going to succeed, this has been a great disappointment, "he says.

Modou Mbengue, the young man's father, sits in a plastic chair at the door of the family home while the children scamper around him.

“He was a brave boy, he came every summer to give us a hand in the fields and with the animals.

We couldn't stop him from leaving, we didn't know it, ”he laments.

Among the half-built block houses of Gantour, perched on a hill, the cold dawn air still circulates and young Fatou Gueye is already doing laundry in a basin.

Her husband, Modou Dieye Fall, is another of the deceased.

“He was a farmer, but in this town the countryside no longer provides enough to live.

I was tired and wanted a better life for all of us, ”he reveals.

Her two young children, Fatou Dieye, six, and Babacar, three, watch oblivious to the tragedy.

"When they grow up I will tell them that their father died in the sea for them", adds the young woman.

If there is anyone who can tell what happened well, it is Pape Abou Mbengue, 20, one of the only two survivors of Gantour who were in the cayuco.

It was he who made the call from Mauritania saying that the others had died.

At the top of the village there is a group of kids chatting over glasses of tea.

"We left Mbour, around midnight, but since we started sailing we began to have wind and bad seas, we went through many difficulties," he recalls.

The vessel, which set sail on October 15, had about 150 people on board.

Only 27 survived. “Three or four days later people began to die, then we got lost at sea and did not know where to go.

It is very hard to see your friends leave in front of you, but you can't do anything, you take them and throw them into the sea.

And that's it.

We had run out of water and food and were drinking from the ocean.

It was God who saved me ”, he adds with a gesture of resignation.

Almost two weeks after their departure they made landfall in northern Mauritania.

The rest of the young people nod their heads.

They too have ever thought of embarking on an adventure.

“I would try again myself”, comments Pape Abou Mbengue, “there is no work here, there is no future, there is nothing”.

Mantani Mbengue is the head of the village, the local authority.

In an open field that serves as a plaza, he sits under a tree with his wife, who sells bags of oil and coffee on a worn carpet.

Almost everything has happened in front of his tired eyes.

His 19-year-old grandson Abdou is another of the missing.

“If there was work here, they wouldn't leave.

They see how their friends go to Spain and they do well while they have nothing.

We do not help them to take the cayuco, but we understand them ”, he says.

Leaning out of this kind of square, among the hanging clothes, the lambs and the half-built houses, a singular house stands out with the entire facade covered with tiles with geometric shapes.

It is the home of a

modou modou

, an emigrant.

“In 2006 there were many people from the town who went to the Canary Islands”, says Arona Mbengue, Abdou's father, “today they are the ones who do things in the town, they build beautiful houses and have cars.

You, who decided to stay, are in the same place.

My son was obedient and hardworking, but he knew the solution was to leave.

Those who die are those who dream of succeeding, those who are not satisfied ”.

Distressed, he shows the passport that he was processing for his son to leave by legal means.

When the document arrived, Abdou had already left.

There are dozens of farm fields in the sandy hills surrounding Gantour. The lowest ones are abandoned, the highest ones are planted with onions. “Every year we notice how the quality of the soil decreases,” says Mamadou Gueye, “my son Serigne Modou worked a lot, but the harvest yield is not good. That is why he went to meet death, because he saw no other way out. When I was young we were patient and we managed to get married and build a house; now the boys are in a hurry to succeed, but this land no longer helps those who are in a hurry ”. It is estimated that about 600 Senegalese died between September and November trying to reach the Canary Islands in boats of fortune.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-12-29

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