Immigrant Risks Jail for Chance to Escape

Isaac Traore sat on the damp floor of a police station, barefoot, thumbing a pack of American Legend cigarettes.

"It's just destiny. Everyone thinks he is going to die next year, not this year," said Traore, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mali. He was being held in Nouadhibou along with more than 60 other would-be immigrants caught trying to make the illegal, and often deadly, six-day boat crossing to the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain.

Last Monday, Traore waited in the dark at midnight near the beach. Forty immigrants -- 23 Malians, 7 Mauritanians, 6 Senegalese and four from Guinea-Bissau -- had pooled their money to buy a 45-foot fishing boat for about $36,000, he said.

Traore said he was allowed to join the trip without paying anything, which he called a question of solidarity among the Malian community. "The people who could pay helped those who couldn't," he said, adding that the understanding was that someday the roles could easily be reversed.

Traore was carrying five cartons of milk, a few cans of Coca-Cola and Fanta orange soda, instant noodles and pasta. Just as he and the others were ready to go, local police surprised them. The other immigrants managed to scatter and escape, and the police confiscated their boat.

Now he sat in the police station in a gray sweat suit, pushing cigarette butts around the floor with his bare toes. Soon a bus would arrive and take him and many others 500 miles through the Sahara Desert back to the border with Mali.

"There is not enough for us in Mali," he said. "We are poor and our children will be poor. We should build a better life now so our children don't have to do this. We want our children to be able to live at home."

As police officers served bowls of rice and rubbery meat, Traore said that as soon as possible, he would return to Nouadhibou to try again. "Europeans came here and took the riches from Africa, but now that Africa is poor, they don't care about Africa," he said. "This is not justice."