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'You know how this ends'
27/09/2007 21:06 - (SA)
Dakar - In one commercial, a mother says she hasn't seen her son since he left eight months ago. The scene cuts to a young man laying face down on a rocky shore, as Senegal's most famous troubadour says, "You know how this story ends."
"Don't risk your life for nothing. You are the future of Africa," singer Youssou N'Dour tells the camera, sitting alone at night on a beached boat in one of a series of ads funded by the government of Spain, whose prosperity has lured Senegalese and other Africans desperate to escape grinding poverty at home.
Determined to curb the influx of illegal migrants, Spain has gone on the offensive, pouring $1.4m into media campaign in Senegal aimed at highlighting the risks of dangerous sea journeys that have claimed countless lives.
In 2006, 31 000 Senegalese reached Spain's Canary Islands on fragile wooden boats, braving 10-days at sea and possible dehydration, starvation and death. So far this year, 7 000 more have made it. Nobody knows how many have been died trying; the boats and bodies of the unsuccessful are usually lost at sea. Otero said Spain's best guess was that 20 to 50 percent die along the way.
Earlier this month, a migrant boat capsized just meters (yards) off the craggy coast of the Canaries, west of the Moroccan coast. Six people survived; 10 others drowned.
'Why are they trying to stop us?'
In Senegal's capital, reactions to the ads have been mixed.
"Why don't they want us to go? Why are they trying to stop us?" said Bathie Ndiaye, 28. "People are just trying to improve their lives. We have nothing here."
Djibril Diagne, a 38-year-old electrician, said the ads were unlikely to have impact because "the root causes of our problems remain. There are no solutions, no jobs for our youth." As for the migrants, "if they get the chance to go, they're going to take it," he said.
Dario Otero, charge d'affaires at the Spanish Embassy in Dakar, said the ads were part of a broader effort to crack down on migrants that has included coastal patrols, diplomacy and deportation.
The publicity campaign was developed in conjunction with Senegalese authorities and the International Organization for Migration. A local advertising agency, Ogilvy Senegal, produced the radio and TV commercials in Senegal's main language, Wolof.
First broadcast last week, the ads are running daily for a month and a half. Also part of the campaign: full-page newspaper ads showing a boat overloaded with migrants, and below it, a wrecked, empty vessel half-buried on a beach.
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