Guinea offers migration route for young west Africans

WITH a determined look on her weathered face, Safiatou Bah has made up her mind: she will leave her young children behind and migrate to Europe on anew and perilous ocean route from Guinea.

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Thousands of young Guineans have attempted to migrate via the Atlantic in recent years, a flow so severe that authorities in the junta-led country have dubbed it a “haemorrhage”.

Lacking both economic opportunity and any hope of change, the migrants are turning to Guinea as a new departure point after Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco beefed up controls.

However, the longer voyage which begins farther south only increases the number of dangers they will face.

Most west Africans travelling the Atlantic route embark in pirogue canoes towards Spain's Canary Islands off northwest Africa, the jumping off point for their continued journey to the European continent.

Already, at least eight boats have left Guinea since spring, each carrying more than 100 people, according to migration NGOs.

Bah, 33, initially left her village for the capital Conakry where she tried to do NGO work that didn’t pan out. In the end, she started a fruit stand to make money to migrate.