Africans Risk Death at Sea for New Life Abroad

Ahmed Ould Haye, local head of the Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart of the Red Cross, estimated that about 15,000 migrants were milling around here waiting to go to the Canaries.

Many work as laborers or fishermen to earn money for the voyage, which typically costs $1,200, Haye said. Some of them pool their funds and buy a narrow boat shaped like a canoe, pointed at both ends. Some pay fishermen to take them. Others deal with middlemen who arrange boat and skipper. Local authorities say a boat leaves nearly every night, jammed with as many as 60 people.

Those who reach the Spanish islands often immediately turn themselves in. Under Spanish law, authorities have 40 days to determine the nationality of detained illegal immigrants and send them home. If they can't find that out in that period -- and many immigrants make a point of arriving with no identification and remaining stubbornly silent in the face of questioning -- they are turned over to the Red Cross and allowed to stay. Many find ways to make it off the Canary Islands and get to Europe proper.

Last year, 4,700 illegal immigrants were registered in the Canaries. In just the first three months of this year, the number was 3,800.

In Nouadhibou, Jope fell in with Deye and two other men from Senegal. They lived in a small rented room while they plotted their departure. Jope was first. On Feb. 1, he walked down to the beach in a cold winter breeze, paid about $10 for a worn orange lifejacket and stepped into a 40-foot fishing boat with 34 other people.

He handed the captain $1,100.

The canoe-like boat chugged away from shore powered by a 40-horsepower outboard motor and steered by the captain using a hand-held global positioning device.

Almost immediately, Jope said, passengers who were not used to being on the water began vomiting. The smell was overpowering. Jope, over six feet tall, found there was barely enough room for people to sit. His legs and ankles swelled so much that he couldn't straighten them.

People prayed and talked quietly, he recalled. There was plenty of food and water, but no one could sleep, and the leaky boat needed constant bailing.

Four days out, they were intercepted by a Moroccan naval vessel. Sailors tied a line to the bow of the immigrants' boat and towed it for three days back to Nouadhibou. All the way, Jope felt devastated.

When they approached the town, everyone on the boat jumped overboard and swam to shore, then ran away to avoid being detained and sent home. He never saw the captain again, and his $1,100 was gone.

When he returned to the room he had rented with his friends, he heard what happened to them.