VOA常速英语2007-West Africans Risk All on Clandestine Trips to E

By Phuong Tran
Dakar, Senegal
05 October 2007
 

Hundreds of Africans, mostly young men, try every week to board fishing canoes headed for Spanish territory. Some make it, but thousands are caught, detained and sent back to Africa. Phuong Tran met with a group of migrants after their boat capsized at sea, and has this report for VOA.

Boats pull into the port in Nouadhibou all day, unloading fish and other sea catches.  In recent years, fishing canoes have started carrying another cargo¹ -- West Africans trying to make it to Europe.

To escape suspicion, the boats carry only one to two people out to sea at a time. They transfer to larger boats waiting for them. Some have been able to make it to the Spanish Canary Islands more than 1,000 kilometers away.

But others do not. 

As part of a year-old partnership², Mauritania received a surveillance ship manned by Spanish Commander Paco Corrales. He has chased smugglers off Spain's southern coast, but he says his new job in Mauritania is tougher.

"If there is an intervention³ at sea, nobody on the ship can sleep.  And if we are not stopping somebody, we have to be on lookout⁴. Not all the canoes we stop are because of leaked news from our informants. We come across some of them during our routine surveillance. But in order to catch them, we have to be vigilant⁵ all night long."

Once the ship stops or rescues a boatload of migrants, Corrales sends them to a detention⁶ center in Nouadhibou. The would-be migrants remain for up to three days, unable to leave except for medical care or bathroom breaks.

Some youths we saw were among 45 rescued when their boat started sinking after the motor died. All are West African. All under 25 years old. And all are hungry after being at sea for three days.

Some volunteer their information to help aid workers track where migrants come from. Most do not, like some men there from Mali, Guinea and Senegal. They say the less of a record they leave behind, the better.

"I fled Conarky because of suffering,” says Moussa Kaba, a Guinean migrant. “I go out for searching. When I get something, I will return back to go help my family."

Yossou Ndiaye, from Senegal, said, "By the time our boat started sinking, we were all so exhausted⁷ because the trip is really long."

A Malian added simply, "I want to go to Europe to make money, to have a job."

But for now, he and the others must wait in this center. A young man says he may try again, but it will be up to God to decide.

1 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

2 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

3 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

4 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

5 vigilant   

adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的

参考例句：

• He has to learn how to remain vigilant through these long nights.他得学会如何在这漫长的黑夜里保持警觉。
• The dog kept a vigilant guard over the house.这只狗警醒地守护着这所房屋。

6 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

7 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。