At The Oasis For African Migrants

FATHER Jerome Dykika shall not forget easily the celebration of last year’s Lent in his Parish at Nuadibu (Mauritania). He was leading a procession with several dozens of his parishioners – all of them Africans from different countries – through the outskirts of the city, where the desert begins.

Suddenly, police vehicles at breakneck speed, squealed to a stop, surrounding them, as police officers jumped out aiming their guns at the congregants. To add to the threatening image, a helicopter hovered over their heads.

The bewildered pilgrims had been mistaken for an expedition of illegal migrants trying to reach one of the hidden points of departure, where fragile boats leave the Mauritanian coasts off for the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory, 700kms away. When the agents – not very well versed in Biblical symbolism about the desert – shouted who had given them permission to walk in that area, Fr Dykika fearlessly answered back: “Since when is it illegal to walk in Africa?”