African migration into EU requires more than just a security response

WorldView:  Asked why he was willing to risk his life to find work in Europe, Pape Seck responded: "Look here on the beach. You can see all of these men, with their boats, and how few fish we catch after a whole day's efforts.

There's no living off the sea these days. The fish are gone, and hard work won't change that."

Pape Seck is a 22-year-old Senegalese fisherman. Last June he was offered a free passage to the Canary Islands in return for his help in getting the boat full of migrants there. As he told a UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs reporter: "How could I say no? I just steered his boat and made sure the engine was running. I was looking forward to finding work in a country where people can become rich, at least compared to what we have here."

Pape left Senegal from the village of Mbour with 107 others, mostly from Senegal but also from Gambia, Guinea and Mauritania. There were two women on board the boat. Each passenger had paid the equivalent of €610 for their seat. "We crammed onto a boat that should normally fit about 30 people. Everyone was praying just to make it to the islands. People were vomiting; some were seeing visions and spirits." Two men, delirious from dehydration, jumped off the boat on the way. Ten others died on board and were thrown into the sea, Pape said.

He was returned to Senegal from a detention camp under a repatriation agreement reached with the Spanish government in 2006 to send home many of the people who arrived in the Canaries that year within 40 days, so as to avoid their right under international law to release, pending asylum proceedings.

The UN body estimates 31,000 made the journey in 901 boats in 2006, and that about 6,000 died in the attempt. The numbers were well down last year because of surveillance by Frontex, the EU's seaborne police operation. But Pape said he would probably try again, since there was no prospect of employment at home.

Reporting from Senegal and the Canaries in the Sunday Business Post on December 30th, Louise Williams wrote that while Senegal used to be a model economy in Africa, it is now one of the least developed states. The fishing industry used to employ about 600,000 people, 15 per cent of the economically active population. But over-fishing by local inshore boats and more significantly by EU and international super-trawlers in deeper offshore waters has killed it. She quoted Mica Diop of the Dakar-based fishing network: "It's a catastrophe. We cannot allow these kinds of ships to fish in our waters. I'm a scientist, I know the impact, and I know that if we continue, the oceans will only last for another 10 years. Ten years maximum."

Some graphic reportage in the New York Times this week bears out that case. The headline on Sharon Lafraniere's report from Kayar in Senegal told one key part of the story: "Europe takes Africa's fish, and boatloads of migrants follow." She quotes a 27-year-old fisherman, Ale Nodye, from that village who has for the last six years netted only barely enough fish to buy fuel for his boat. He volunteered to bring 87 people to the Canaries in a wooden canoe, but they were also arrested and deported. He will try again. "I could be a fisherman there. Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here any more." Men like him are humiliated by not being able to provide for their extended families, and those who have successfully migrated to Europe send back remittances, which give them real prestige at home.

Vast EU, Russian, Chinese and South Korean industrial trawlers have hoovered up the ocean floor off West Africa, leading to the collapse of fish populations and the biomass of important species. Restrictions on fishing in EU waters have exported the problem there, propelled by EU fishing deals on species such as shrimp, tuna and octopus reached with African governments. They need the money, and EU officials insist these are scrupulous agreements; but the African states' record in resource management, conservation and supervision is lamentable, in many cases non-existent.

In another New York Times report, Elisabeth Rosenthal described seeing the logo of the China National Fisheries Corporation in London's Brixton fish market. They are now one of the largest suppliers of West African fish to Europe, which has now become the largest market for fish in the world. Some 60 per cent of EU fish is imported, half of it illegally, mostly from developing countries. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a favoured landing place for them, as there are only five inspectors. Once fish gets through that port it is free to be sold all over the EU.

In fact boat people make up less than 10 per cent of recent migration to Europe, although it has this graphic impact - about 40,000 a year, according to Martin Baldwin-Edwards, an Athens-based researcher on the subject. The overall numbers are about 2.5 million in Italy, (4 per cent of the population), 4.8 million in Spain (11 per cent) and 1.15 million in Greece (10 per cent).

About 75 per cent of migrants arrive by over-staying their tourist visas, many others by staying on after requests for asylum are turned down. Stronger policing in the Canaries and Gibraltar have diverted the boat traffic to the central Mediterranean islands of Lampedusa, Malta and Sardinia, and to Libya and Turkey as originating states. Another graphic piece of reportage this week, on BBC's Panorama, told how up to one million migrants have gathered in Libya, many from sub-Saharan Africa, preparing for journeys to Europe this spring.

Martin-Edwards uses the term irregular rather than illegal migration, in recognition that many originally entered legally then overstayed, or applied legally for asylum, as well as those who entered in a deliberately illegal fashion. He believes EU states have failed to come to terms properly with the enormous challenge they face from African migration, trying to securitise it rather than responding with proper labour market and demographic planning, aid and development programmes. The fishing example shows how these issues are connected.