Nicknamed "those who remain", the children of Senegalese migrants who disappeared at sea are forced to live in unbearable anguish or the insurmountable pain of knowing that one of their parents died or went missing after the disappearance of their boat.
Their number has risen to at least several thousand in Senegal in recent years.
One day my father told my brother and I that he wanted to go to Spain and he asked us what we thought. I told him: “Dad, don't leave, don't leave me alone, I only have you and mom. At the time, my mother was in the hospital. My father replied: “Let me go. When I have earned a lot of money, I will take care of you and also help my father, who is seriously ill, because I cannot afford his treatment, confidedSokhna, orphan.
In the port city of Mbour, in western Senegal, the shattered lives and heartbreaking tragedies of these children are often relegated to the shadows or passed over in silence due to the taboo nature of their parents' decision to leave.
Crowded on canoes, which often carry more than 100 people, migrants risk their lives to reach abroad, generally the Canary Islands in Spain.
The loss of my father hurts me a lot because I wanted him to stay with us. In addition, he left with his friend, who only had his stomach burned [the canoe caught fire, editor's note], but did not die", said Pope Balla Ndiaye, orphan.
Families are also afraid to share their children's stories due to the authorities' often repressive approach, including arresting smugglers and "rescuing" boats, whether or not migrants wish to return.
And sometimes mothers also have difficulty explaining to their children that their father has disappeared or that he has taken the canoe, etc. So what they do is they tend, for example, to hide the truth, to tell the child that his father has gone on a trip or that he will one day return, and so on. And I think that in these cases, children also experience invisible grief. Because there are many children who think that their parents will come back overnight, even though there are children whose father has disappeared and whose body has been found, said Katy Faye, psychotherapist, international NGO Diocesan Delegation for Migration (DDM), Senegal.
In 2024, at least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain via the perilous Atlantic route, according to Caminando Fronteras, the highest figure recorded since the organization began recording this data in 2007.
