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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Suman Naishadham

The new shepherds of Spain: African migrants take up a neglected rural trade

Spain Migrant Shepherds - (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The bells and bleats faded as Osam Abdulmumen, a migrant from Sudan, herded sheep back from pasture, the sun setting over a centuries-old farm in Spain’s arid heartland.

From dawn to dusk, Abdulmumen, 25, has looked over a flock of 400 animals for months in Los Cortijos, a village of 850 people in the plains of Castile-La Mancha, the region in central Spain made famous by the 17th-century classic “Don Quixote.”

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