In the port of La Restinga on the island of El Hierro there is a large mural that says: “My instinct dictates to the sea, to the sea which is a labyrinth.” Just in front of that wall, some workers with an excavator smash a colored canoe to pieces. It is one of those that arrived this week and when they finish, there are four others left waiting to be destroyed dancing in the water near the dock, plus the one that arrived this Thursday with more than 70 people. Climbing onto the truck that is loading the remains of the boat is a young man from Mali, named Fousseni Diakite. He is 32 years old and arrived on a barge similar to the one he destroyed today on February 7, 2009 on the island of Tenerife.
“That date is not forgotten, friend, it is more than your birthday,” he says.
Question: How many days were you at sea? Answer: 5 nights and 4 days Q. And what is a day at sea like? A. Not one day. The bad thing is when you haven’t been able to get up for two days because if you move they threaten you because you could unbalance the boat. And you are sitting in the water, because the boat is flooded by the waves. Your legs swell, you end up with a sore ass, a sore cock, and not being able to walk.
On board they have some cookies, apples, dates, although many do not eat anything because they spend the journey vomiting and only have a few sips of water. They had GPS, until it stopped working.
“And then you start going around because you don’t know where you’re going. I saw the captain’s face with fear and then I was afraid too, I said now yes, no one is going to see their mother again,” he recalls.
Fousseni was born in 1991, in Sikasso, a town south of Bamako where his parents are still there, to whom he sends money. We ask him if he has siblings and he answers: “My mother has 7 children, 4 males and 3 females.” There may be several parents along the way. We caught him on his first day of work here, in La Restinga, the small town in the south of the island that is home to several diving clubs where many come to dive in the Mar de las Calmas Marine Reserve.
“Things are screwed, Africa is becoming empty, young people are leaving because there is no work. We have iron, there could be factories. We have cotton, we have a lot of mango. We could make people work,” he protests about the situation. of his continent.
Q. And what do politicians do? A. The politicians there work for France and for NATO.
Q. But do young people know that they are risking their lives when they get on a boat? A. Clear. There are a lot of mothers crying because they don’t know where their children are. But many people live in towns without electricity and without drinking water and if you demonstrate they will send you to jail or kill you. Here someone can become a footballer, someone can be a fighter, others are left with nothing, it depends on luck.
He tells us all this loudly, because meanwhile the roar of the machine that shreds the wood as if it were cardboard continues. They have been in the water for so long that they are completely rotten inside, another worker tells us. The same one who gives Fousseni some gloves and tells him: “Wash them and bring them back tomorrow, but wash them, otherwise the wounds on your hands will become infected.” Although the one that will never be cured is the one he carries inside.
“I won’t go up again, even if they pay me millions, never again,” he emphasizes.
Q. And do you pray on the boat?
A. Of course! Everyone starts saying the Koran and praying, praying until God says, damn I’m going to save them now.
