The scene took place this Wednesday in Banjul, the capital of Gambia, where the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, was on an official visit. The minister’s entourage squeezes through the police station courtyard where Spanish and Gambian police work to dismantle immigrant smuggling networks. The stairs of this humble building lead to a first floor that looks like an attic of old furniture and, a few steps higher, to a sticky second floor where the police commanders of both countries have their offices. In one of them Bach music is heard at full volume. So far this year, 16 canoes have tried to reach the Canary Islands from Gambia and all, except one, were intercepted, on land or on the high seas, where the Civil Guard also patrols. Those in charge of the police station tell the minister that exit attempts are increasing, but so is the ability to stop them. Albares congratulates the agents for the results, even working with a very limited infrastructure. But, on this trip, local authorities have given other keys to stop the exodus of their young people: investing in education and employment.
Albares was this Wednesday and Thursday in Banjul (Gambia) and Dakar (Senegal) on a trip with which he intends to strengthen cooperation and political dialogue with two of his most stable partners in the region. It also seeks to stop the still intense departure of cayucos heading to the Canary Islands, where more than 19,000 people have arrived so far this year, triple that of the same period in 2023. The origin of more than half of the departures to Spain is now in Mauritania, which continues to demand more funding, but Gambia and, above all, Senegal have seen how in 2024 almost 4,000 of their young people have risked their lives in the Atlantic to reach Europe.
There are no magic solutions – “irregular immigration cannot be resolved, it must be managed,” was heard on the official plane – but Albares, who was received by the presidents of the two countries and several of their ministers, has taken note of some of their recipes. Frustration over the lack of horizons marks two societies in which the average age of the population is between 18.5 years in Senegal and 21.8 in Gambia, compared to more than 45 years in Spain.
At a training institute for tourism and hospitality, set up by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) in 2007 and managed by the Gambian Government since 2013, the Minister of Tourism, Abdou Jove, mentioned irregular immigration as one of the country’s great concerns and requested funding to expand the center. “Education is essential for them to have opportunities here,” he said. Every year, 400 students are trained in these kitchens and living rooms to work in a sector that accounts for 17% of the GDP and generates more than 10,000 jobs. Albares sees in this place the possibility of creating a regional center with students from all over the region.
On the way to the plane to fly to Dakar, the ministerial team congratulated themselves for having formalized a political dialogue with Banjul – where a member of the Government had not traveled since 2019 – with annual meetings between foreign ministers.
The big announcement of this trip has been to Senegal, where Albares has met for the first time with the newly formed Government of the former opposition Bassirou Diomaye Faye. The minister has promised that Spain will inject at least 180 million in cooperation for the next four years with a focus on youth and employment, an increase of 33% compared to the previous period. “For the first time, West Africa will be at the highest level and Senegal will be a priority country,” Albares maintained. Within this framework of cooperation, Dakar has already outlined some sectors with potential to train and employ its young people, such as the rehabilitation of historical buildings.
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Moussa Sow, 21, works hard to clean with a brush, for 75 euros a month, the steps leading to the pool of one of the best hotels in Dakar. He is one of the 300,000 young Senegalese who go out every year to a job market that does not have room for everyone. Sow, a small and serious boy, has seen several of his neighbors go to the Canary Islands and, although he dreams of living in Europe, he assures that he will never do so in a cayuco. He says that he is too dangerous and that his mother, whom he wants to give a better life, doesn’t want. “Young people leave because there is no work for everyone and salaries are not enough,” he explains.
After four years of profound political and social crisis, with demonstrations that left some 60 dead and more than a thousand people imprisoned, Senegal is now going through a moment of peace that has restored hope for the future to its citizens. The previous government, chaired by Macky Sall, used the courts to try to eliminate the opposition, but was met with determined resistance in the streets.
New political landscape
All this instability and frustration had a direct impact on the departure of canoes to the Canary Islands, which intensified after the outbreak of the crisis in March 2020 until reaching record numbers in 2023. The departures from Senegal, although the months of greater intensity, show a clear downward trend. Behind this decrease is not only the collaboration in migration control of the Senegalese authorities, but also the expectations of employment, justice and the fight against corruption generated by the new Government, which defines itself as left-wing pan-Africanist and which has an enormous support among youth.
One of the pending issues between Spain and Senegal is that of circular immigration, but its results so far are very discreet. After the success of the first pilot experience in 2022, which involved the transfer of 17 young people as temporary workers to Hellín, in Albacete, for three months, the Spanish Government decided to move to another scale in 2023 and take 120 young people to work with the same company. However, according to sources familiar with the program, of the 120 who went, only about 40 returned, which means that two out of three decided to remain in an irregular situation. Last March the Spanish Executive restarted the process for this year. Albares has agreed with her counterpart, Yacine Fall, to explore new formulas and sectors, such as truck drivers, a worker profile that is highly in demand in Spain.
The other big issue, always present, but never resolved, was that of the return of Senegalese in an irregular situation in Spain. In recent years, attempts by the Spanish authorities have been constant, especially with the spike in arrivals in the Canary Islands, but Dakar resists and, so far this year, not even a dozen returns have been carried out, according to police sources. “It is a complicated decision for African countries,” foreign sources acknowledge. Forced returns are the great obsession of the EU to discourage irregular immigration, but the countries of origin make them difficult due to the great social opposition they generate. Among other things, because remittances from emigrants from Senegal are around 11% of GDP, 23% in the case of Gambia, according to 2022 data from the World Bank.
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