SPAIN: Mother of Senegalese who died trying to reach the Canary Islands leads association

Alioune Mar, a 25-year old Senegales left his home town of Thiaroye sur Mer near Dakar at the beginning of March 2006. He travelled to the port of Nouadhibou in Mauritania to work as a fisherman. A few weeks later he called his mother, Yaye Bayam, to say that fishing was unsuccessful and he had decided to travel to Spain. Yaye remembers his last words to her: 'Mother start praying for us because there are two boats (cayucos) going to the Canary Islands. We didn't find fish here but we will find a job in the Canary Islands in order to be able to help you.' Alioune Mar then became one of the 31,000 Africans carried in 2006 by illegal traffickers in open wooden boats known as cayucos in dangerous sea journeys in search for a better life in Spain. Alioune told his mother the journey was going to last fifteen days and promised to call her as soon as he touched land in the Canary Islands. But Yaye waited for three weeks and the phone call never came. "I waited for two weeks without news, then three weeks without news, then a cousin of my son who travelled in a different boat called me to tell me that my son's boat had sunk due to a heavy storm. All of them died under the water." Alioune Mar, was Yaye's only son, became this time one of the more that 4,000 people who died in such journeys last year. "It was very hard to lose my son, it was very hard to lose somebody who helped me with everything, he fed me, he paid for water and electricity. It's been very hard for all families so we have cried a lot, we have cried a lot," she told a news conference in Madrid. Yaye decided a month later, that she wanted to help relatives of migrants in the same situation. So far she has gathered 500 families in her town who are starting small businesses. She came to Madrid to seek support for her projects. "This first solution is for associations like ours to come to Spain to speak directly with Spaniards", she says. "The second solution is to have Spanish partners who can help directly with the objective, that means to help directly the women and young people involved and to repatriate from Spain all those youngsters who have psychological problems because we, as mothers, are also psychological affected," Yaye told Reuters Television in an interview on Thursday (February 01). Yaye's hope is to return to Senegal with social aid from Spanish organisations so she can start convincing young people to stay at home and work there instead of risking their lives . Authorities estimate that in 2006 some 6,000 immigrants drowned - travelling from more distant countries like Senegal - in the attempt of seeking the Spanish dream.

ITN Source | February 2, 2007

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