In Senegal, Nicaragua has made a place for itself in the popular vocabulary. This small Central American country, until recently unknown to many Senegalese, has become famous since it is considered a springboard to the United States.
In the village where he works as a middle school teacher in Bakel, in eastern Senegal, Abdou Talla has noticed several departures among his students towards this destination in recent months. “The adults left first,” he said. In this town which has a community well established in France and where “success comes through emigration”, the traditional path has been disrupted by the “opening” of this new route. The phenomenon has grown, especially since a visa is not necessary for Nicaragua.
Videos of groups of Senegalese filming themselves at Dakar airport have appeared on social networks, all enthusiastic about their departure with a simple arrival authorization. By following the profiles of these candidates for migration, we can see them climbing mountains, taking paths in the middle of the forest, crossing rivers sometimes at night to conclude their journey with images of skyscrapers of American cities. The success of their journey is added to the numerous videos explaining how to get to the United States by this “land route”.
Less dangerous than the journey across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands to reach Europe, this new route arouses desires in Senegal. After three visa requests refused by the United States embassy and an aborted departure due to family pressure, Khadim became interested in this alternative route, the secrets of which he now masters with his fingertips. While waiting to realize his “American dream”, the young man says that a friend arrived in the United States on August 26 after a fortnight of travel, its “average” duration.
The trip is expensive: up to 8,000 euros
“Dakar, Casablanca, Madrid then El Salvador, then from there to Nicaragua,” Khadim lists before specifying that this series of connecting flights is “the route that works at the moment.” “Tickets are cheaper when you book early, but it’s not sure since there may be a change [of itinerary],” says Hamidou, one of the organizers of these trips that the candidates initially called “businessmen”. Based in the United States, he is responsible for purchasing the ticket, facilitating the journey of his clients from the departure airport, where corruption allows them to avoid police harassment, and explaining the procedure to follow at each stage.
It is also he who is responsible for sending in small installments the “pocket money” that the travelers gave them before departure and which he distributes throughout the stages to prevent them from being robbed along the way. From Nicaragua, migrants most often continue their journey by bus or in convoys of small vehicles with which they cross the borders of Honduras, Guatemala and then Mexico thanks to a network of smugglers and local guides often assisted by the Senegalese who officiate as interpreters.
Travel is expensive. Up to 8,000 euros, almost ten times more than the sums paid for a trip by canoe to the Spanish islands. But the assurance of arriving at their destination pushes candidates to put their savings on the line or to seek help from their parents.
This is the case of Moustapha, a former telephone salesman who recently arrived in the United States. “I was able to support myself but it’s not enough in the long term,” he gives as the reason for his departure.
On the Mediterranean route, several deadly incidents have marked the perilous crossing of Senegalese people in recent weeks. Yet another tragedy shook the country in August after a canoe leaving the coastal village of Fass Boye was lost at sea for more than a month. Among more than a hundred travelers, only thirty-eight survivors were saved off the coast of Cape Verde. Despite this new tragedy, hundreds of other Senegalese migrants aboard makeshift boats have since attempted the journey.
Political instability to justify departure
On the other side of the Atlantic, an accident at the beginning of August reminded us that passage through Central America is also not without risks with the disappearance of a boat with twenty-seven migrants on board, including ten -seven Senegalese.
They planned to go to the American border police to apply for asylum. According to several testimonies, many Senegalese now cite political instability in their country to justify their departure. The country has been marked for more than two years by political tensions and a series of deadly riots on the sidelines of the trials of Ousmane Sonko, the main opponent, incarcerated for more than a month on several charges including calling for insurrection.
After submitting an asylum application – there were 1,176 Senegalese to have requested it in 2022 according to the UNHCR – and a detention of a few days in American retention camps, for most of these migrants begins a race against the clock for regularization and obtaining a work permit. In New York, the main center of attraction due to the large diaspora established in Harlem in the so-called “Little Senegal” district and the economic activity, they most often experience setbacks that are very rarely reported by The travellers.
Saturation of reception structures
Mamadou Dramé, the president of the association of Senegalese in America does not hesitate to speak of a “humanitarian crisis”, overwhelmed by the “rush” towards the premises of his association in recent months. “A hundred migrants” is, according to him, passed until then through Nicaragua. “The first wave dates from 2015, the route was more perilous since they largely walked from Brazil and encountered gangs along the way. They arrived traumatized, sometimes without papers after having been robbed,” he says. If these candidates for emigration now have a safer option to arrive in the United States, “several Senegalese established in Brazil or Argentina came before leaving home recently”, disappointed with an America which “did not correspond not what they imagined.”
The president of the Senegalese in America fears the winter that is coming at a time when the “shelters are completely saturated” and when, according to another Senegalese resident living in New York, many new arrivals do not know where to sleep. Due to high demand, “many were put up in hotels, then put in tents near stadiums,” he says.
“The luckiest are those whose family settled here took charge of the trip,” explains Mamadou Dramé. In Tidiane’s, the future is being written in the United States. His cousin has just arrived by road from Nicaragua to join his big brother, who left more than a year ago. Tidiane preferred to stay despite the encouragement of those close to him. Married and father of several children, he does not intend to take any risks and wants his rights “to be respected” by arriving with a visa, even if he deplores the slowness of the procedures. While her meeting with the American embassy is scheduled in a few weeks, Tidiane hopes to go to the United States to “pay her rent debts in a few months” before bringing her family over. His unfailing optimism contrasts with the reality of a legal emigration route that is most often closed to ordinary Senegalese people.
