Bineta Dieng gets a lump in her throat when she remembers October 30, 2023. That day, her 19-year-old daughter Maimouna left in a canoe with more than a hundred people on board from Senegal to Spain and disappeared forever.
"My daughter decided to emigrate because she couldn't find opportunities here. Since they left, neither I nor any family member of those who left have heard anything. All we know is that they never reached their destination.
"No body has been recovered," this 57-year-old Senegalese woman tells Efe.
Dieng lives with her three remaining daughters - although she continues to talk about Maimouna as if she could still touch her - in the fishing settlement of Bargny, located about 30 kilometers from the country's capital, Dakar.
This town is a symbol of the drama of emigration, on the one hand, and the intersection between environmental deterioration and the socioeconomic fragility of coastal cities, on the other.
Natural and human risks
According to figures from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), more than 87,000 people arrived in Spain via the Atlantic route in 2023 and 2024, coming not only from Senegal, but also from countries such as Mauritania and Gambia.
In Bargny, in particular, local authorities estimate that around 3,000 people from the settlement have taken this migratory route in the last two years.
"Many are left behind, but many more succeed. Therefore, I understand that young people continue to take to the sea," says Dieng. Since 2023, up to 15 residents of the block where she lives, with eight homes located just twenty steps away, have died in the waters of the Atlantic.
Bargny's 51,000 inhabitants face increasingly serious risks, intensified by both natural and human factors.
One of their main concerns is coastal erosion, which has accelerated in recent years, causing a retreat of the coastline of between 3 and 4 meters per year in this area of the Senegalese coast, according to the United Nations.
In Bargny, the effects of the loss of coastline are reflected in the walls and streets of the settlement, where even mosques and a cemetery have been submerged.
"During the day it is difficult to see men here," Aissatou Samba, 65, tells EFE, who also lost one of her sons, Babacar, 30, on the same trip as Maimouna. "Those who do not go out to sea to fish during the day have already left on route to Europe," she adds.
The destruction of the coastline not only forces communities to move, but also puts their main means of livelihood at risk: fishing.
With around 73% of Bargny's active population employed in this sector, the loss of coastal land and the reduction of fish stocks due to environmental changes have had serious consequences for the local economy and food security.
For example, a recent Oxfam report warned that, in coastal areas of Senegal such as Bargny, the cost of a basket of 'sardinella' (a commonly consumed fish) had risen from 15 to 75 euros in just five years.
Without losing hope
Given the lack of opportunities in Bargny, Dieme Ndiaye (name changed) left for Spain on September 26, 2022, after paying around 200,000 CFA francs (just over 300 euros) for a place in a canoe.
As a resident of the town and knowing the organizers of the trip, the price was considerably reduced, explains this 24-year-old graphic designer. After seven days of sailing, Ndiaye arrived in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands.
"Although I was traveling with five other acquaintances, the trip was very hard. About a dozen people died during the journey," he tells EFE.
After moving to Cádiz with the help of a local NGO, Ndieye ended up in Paris, where he had family. For the young man, "the worst thing was the loneliness during the trip."
Unable to find work due to lack of papers, he decided to leave for Marseille but, before reaching the southern city, he was arrested by the Police and deported back to Senegal on May 4, 2023.
Although Ndiaye admits to having lost some of his hope, others, on the contrary, cling to any possibility, however remote it may be.
Thus, for example, after more than a year without news of their children, the mothers of Babacar and Maimouna decided to go this January to a marabout (local spiritual leader), who assured them that they were being held in Tunisia, something practically impossible due to the route they took.
In Bargny, despite everything, people continue to look to the sea with longing.
