'I prefer white men's country'

2006-10-18 10:29

Saint Louis - "If they had left me in the white men's country, I was going to grow up, play with my friends, study, work and return to Senegal with lots of money to help my family", regrets young Ismaila, timidly looking at his illegal migrant father.

Nine-year-old Ismaila Diop, repatriated from Spain last week, was the youngest of several thousands of Senegalese illegal migrants flown back over the past month from the Spanish Canary islands under a provisional deal between Madrid and Dakar.

Accompanied by his father, Alioune Diop, 31, Ismaila came awkwardly down the steps of the Spanish-chartered plane. His appearance caused a stir among the airport workers, medical staff and security forces awaiting the returnees.

Everybody was moved by the sight of a child among the expelled migrants who tried to enter Europe clandestinely.

Dad drags son away from limelight

Irritated by the restlessness created at the airport, Alioune dragged his son a little away from the limelight to begin on the few administrative formalities, involving a brief identification followed by a medical check.

Standing at just more than a metre tall, the young boy said: "My name is Ismaila Diop. I live in Grand Yoff (a popular district north of Dakar). My father and I took off from Guinea in March with 97 people and we arrived safe and sound" at the Canaries.

Dwarfed by scores of adults looking even more exhausted than him, he was handed a sandwich, a bottle of fruit juice and about $20 for his airfare home.

Behind eyeglasses given him by the Spanish Red Cross, the boy displayed some pride after journalists said that he was the youngest of the Senegalese illegal migrants so far repatriated from Spain.

He said: "I will talk to my mother about it, my brothers and my childhood friends in my district."

'I've painful memories of the trip'

As a small group of people began to encircle him, a gendarme ordered him to get into one of the buses waiting at the airport tarmac.

In the bus, he told a reporter of painful memories of the trip on dugout canoe over the Atlantic Ocean, during which he "was sick".

He recalled: "One day, one of the passengers 'blew his top' wanting to throw itself into the sea. But he was saved." He then described his stay in the Canaries.

He was in the company of other African children of his age with whom he "played".

The boy lamented: "If I had not returned, I was going to attend a school in Europe. But I am back ... I will suffer because my mother abandoned me a long time ago and I live only with my father who has no job, no wife and no help."

The child, who however still kept a little hope, said: "We are damned by returning to Senegal. I met a Spanish mom who promised to help support my studies if I go back to school."

Spain said on Monday that it had sent back some 4 000 Senegalese since the operation started in mid-September.

- AFP