Eager students from all over West Africa extend their hands as teachers guide them through mathematics and classical Arabic. They then run out to meet their parents, who clean the houses, run informal taxis or intestine sardines in Chinese factories.
Outside, government billboards urged the thesis families and others to fight “migrant smuggling”, showing congested boats navigating the thrashing waves of the Atlantic. Inside, the poster warns that the ocean can be fatal.
It is difficult to launch on the search messaging and a fast popular migrant route towards Europe in Noodibo, the second largest city in Mauritania. Since the authorities have strengthened safety measures on long -lasting routes, migrants are resorting to more dangerous people. From Mauritania, they risk hundreds of kilometers of sea and halling winds to reach the canary islands in Spain.
This route puts new tension on the banks of Sahara on this port city of 177,000 people. Old infrastructure and unexpected roads have not entered the fishing industry as European and Chinese investment, and such as migrants and their children reach far as Syria and Pakistan.
Schools for children of migrants and refugees have been established as an initial response to the growing need in 2018, such a program that has been imagined as a $ 219 million part, the European Union and Mauritania broke the last year.
One of the many of Europe is that Europe has signed programs with neighboring states to prevent migration-fand border petrol, development aids and refugees, refugees, refugees, and host communities.
This is a reaction to increasing alarm and anti -migration politics in Europe. According to the fronts of the European Union’s border agency, about 47,000 migrant cannirs last year reached boats, a record “fuel by departure from Mauritania, even declining from other departure points.” About 6,000 were children under 18 years of age.
It is difficult to monitor the death in the sea, but the Spanish non -profitable boundaries say at least 6.800 people were killed or missing while trying to cross the crossing last year. Circumstances are so rigid that the boats flow can end in Brazil or Caribbean.
Although several praise initiatives that meet the needs of ignoring migrants and refugees, some believe that they will be effective in discouraging the departure for Europe – even the head of the group who runs the Nukhibau school.
“We can’t stop the migration,” said Amsatau Vepauum, the president of the organization to support the city’s major migrant support groups migrants and refugees. “But through increasing awareness, we want to improve the circumstances under which people leave.”
Preparation for uncertain future
The organization surveyed the migrant population years ago and found that education was one of the biggest obstacles for integration in Mauritania.
The rights of the children of Human Rights Watch Bill Van Essewed said that the world is true. He said that many countries count and refugees go through bureaucratic obstacles for school access.
“Without literacy or numerical, how can you advocate for yourself as a person who has human rights in today?” Van Essewed said.
In the January instructions, the Ministry of Education of Mauritania confirmed that refugee children had the right to participate in public school. But it has not applied for many migrants who do not qualify as refugees and face difficulty in admission as they launch a birthday certificate, residency paper or school record.
The school has a parallel run of Mauritania’s school system at the age of 5 to 12 in the school for migrant and refugee children of Nukhibau and also teaches Arabic along with a similar course, which targets to integrate children in public classes in the sixth grade.
Families often do not plan to live in Mauritania, but parents still desk the school as a lifeline for children’s futures, wherever they will be.
“Sometimes the circumstances of life leave you somewhere, so you adapt, and whatever is happening inspires you to live,” said Vepauum.
Weak oversite and worried parents
From the point of view of Europe, fanning aid towards the search initiative is part of a big effort to persuade people not to migrate. Some experts say that it displays a disconnect between the goals of politics and on-the-guound realities.
“The European Union always announces a big money, but it is very difficult to find out how the money is actually spent,” said Ulf Lessing, director of the Sahel program of the German think tank Konrad Adenora Foundation.
Both the school and the organization have exposed their work with the United Nations agencies by the European Union and Member States to support the migrants and refugees. Nobody said how much money they have spent in school or other programs for the purpose of migrants in Mauritania.
The school said that it accuses the students on the basis of what families can tolerate so that they can pay rent on their two -storey Cinderblock buildings and utilities.
But the four parents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were concerned about taking out their children, stated that the basic monthly fee of $ 15 was very high by the child.
A father of two Mali students said, “If you cannot pay, they will take you out.”
Heer said that many parents want to give children opportunities for shortage in their home countries. Hey heard from other parents that it is easy to enroll in school in Canary islands, but limited access to education is a problem.
The school in Noodibau says that it has educated more than 500 students. It has not tracked the number that continues to Europe.
Pressure to move forward
Times are changing in Nouadhibou. Community leaders and business owners are concerned that the growing competition for jobs has raised doubts towards foreign -born communities.
It consisted of laborers from neighboring Senegal and Mali who settled in the city years ago. Support groups say that outreach among migrants for a long time is easy, the river’s newcomers are worried about attracting attention to the bag, as they are looking for smugglers to help them move forward, a community leader of the gardener Kardar Konte said.
Many migrants say they only need help.
“We are doing this because we think there is no other option,” Burima Maida said.
The 29 -year -old graduate ran away from the gardener with a teaching degree as extremist violence. In several days, he waits at Nukhibau port with hundreds of other migrants, expecting the fish factory “cold room.”
But without a resident or work visa, they often go away gymnastics, or pay with – Hold – they are afraid to misbehave that they bring wild vengeance.
Maiiga fees are stuck in a country where deep racial division between Arabs and Black Africans almost impossible integration, widely with discrimination by employers. He is uncertain where to go ahead.
“Just let me work. I can do a lot of work,” Heer said. “Everyone knows how to do something.”
Meanwhile, every day, he picks up his niece at a Catholic school, hoping that this discovery will give a life beyond concerns.
