A Madrid-based actor who had travelled to the Canary Islands to report on the arrival of a near-record number of asylum seekers was reunited with his brother after finding out that he was among the thousands who have made the treacherous trip from Senegal to Spain in recent weeks.
Thimbo Samb and his team had arrived in the archipelago hoping to tell the story of the more than 23,000 asylum seekers who have turned up on its shores so far this year. But the Senegal-born actor’s trip took a different turn after he learned that his older brother was among the many who had recently set off on the risky route.
His brother had kept the plans hidden, knowing Samb would disapprove. Instead, it was Samb’s mother who revealed – three days after his brother had embarked on the perilous journey – that his sibling was one of 248 people crammed into a heaving, rickety boat that was attempting one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.
“I was filled with fear,” said Samb. “I couldn’t eat, I wasn’t sleeping.”
He described the days of waiting for news as scarier than when he had made the same crossing himself at the age of 17. For days he kept his eyes on his phone, willing it to ring. “You can’t call anyone because there’s zero communication with these boats.”
The risks of the route were fresh in his mind: in August, more than 90 people who set off from near Samb’s home town in Senegal were believed to have died after their boat ended up drifting for more than a month at the mercy of the Atlantic’s powerful trade winds.
“Really, I wouldn’t advise anyone to come by boat,” he said. “But I also understand why they do it.”
While nearly everyone from his home town of Kayar, a coastal city about 35 miles (60km) north of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, had lost a loved one or acquaintance along the route, Samb said many continued to see a boat journey as the only means of securing a future as they grappled with unemployment, mounting political instability and a sense that there was little on offer for them in Senegal.
So far this year, 23,537 asylum seekers have arrived in the Canary Islands – up 80% from the same period last year. In the first weeks of October, the number of arrivals climbed to near-record levels, with about 4,000 people a week reaching the islands.
Spain’s acting migration minister, José Luis Escrivá, said this week that the central government was finalising a €50m aid package to help the Canary Islands cope with what he described as an “extraordinary migration flow”.
It was this increase in arrivals – many of whom are from Senegal – that had brought Samb to the Canary Islands with his team from The Migration Route, an information portal. “We went to cover this and my brother happened to be there,” said Samb.
Six days after the wooden fishing boat carrying his brother had set off from west Africa, news came that it had landed in El Hierro, the remote, westernmost island of the archipelago. “I gave my thanks to God, frankly, because there are so many people who don’t make it,” said Samb.
His brother was swiftly transferred to Tenerife, where Samb tracked him down and told him of plans to bring him to live with him. “In some ways he’s going to have it a lot better than me – I slept on the streets for months [when I arrived], combing through rubbish bins so that I could eat,” he said. “But it’s still not going to be easy: there’s the paperwork, finding a job and racism. He’ll have to suffer through all that.”
Samb’s warning came as the perils of what his brother had just survived were laid bare. Earlier this month a vessel carrying about 80 women, children and men had seemingly vanished after setting off from Senegal, sparking fears that their unstable vessel had succumbed to the fierce currents of the Atlantic.
“It’s been at sea for 12 days,” said Samb. “We’re talking about mothers with toddlers, and so far we’ve heard nothing, absolutely nothing, from them.”
