One of the worst migration tragedies to hit The Gambia in recent times has catapulted the riverside town of Barra from relative obscurity to the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
The disaster may have happened in the Mauritanian coastal town of Nouhadhibou, 1, 133kms away, but attention has quickly shifted to where the ill-fated journey began.
Perched just north of the capital Banjul and across an estuary where the River Gambia empties into the Atlantic Ocean, the otherwise sleepy coastal town of Barra was the staging post for the ill-fated boat full of irregular migrants which hit a rock and capsized off the coast of Mauritania earlier this week.
The hapless migrants were bound for Spain when the tragedy occurred, leaving at least 63 of them dead, 85 surviving by the skin of their teeth and 47 still missing, according to latest figures from the Mauritanian authorities.
Aside from the tragic boat, two other vessels packed with irregular migrants that set sail from Barra, a dusty riverside crossroads town of roughly 10, 000 inhabitants had been intercepted by Mauritanian coastguards.
Amie Dubois and Ya Jojo Bojang, two of those named as victims were natives of the town as were three brothers who were on the doomed journey, one of them driving the boat.
There are also heartrending tales of a young mother perishing with three of her young children, the youngest strapped on her back.
Since the tragedy, there have been no shortage of reactions from residents of the town, where a funereal atmosphere hangs over the streets.
Speaking to the African Press Agency on Saturday, Mam Jarra Secka, a regular ferry user said although many in Barra are in a state of mourning, some seem to take solace from news that the two other boats intercepted by the Mauritanian authorities have made it safely to shore even if they are far from their target destination in Spain.
Barra sits at a crossroads, witnessing on a daily basis the constant movement of peoples and goods from across the river estuary in the south to the north into neighbouring Senegal.
The same movements are played out the other way round.
5km away from the Gambian capital, the ferry town is the capital of the Lower Niumi region that had long ago earned a reputation as a staging post for many irregular migrants desperate to reach Europe in search of a better life.
However, its lack of proper infrastructure means travellers more often than not look to spending a few hours on their way to either direction.
Barra’s beachfront sometimes crammed with fishing and transport canoes, provides the perfect cover in plain sight for pirogues involved in the clandestine trafficking in ‘back-way migrants’ some of whom are ready to dig deep into their purses to pay their passage to Europe.
It has long played this role but the movement of regular travellers had offered a convenient cover for clandestine migration.
The latest tragedy comes at a time when most Gambians were beginning to think that perhaps the ‘back-way’ syndrome had burned itself out as the government of Adama Barrow unveils seeral programmes to empower young people and render them employable.
It is also a chastening period for so-called agents who facilitate such perilous journeys for irregular migrants, charging a fortune for their efforts.
As President Barrow and his government vow to unmask and dismantle the networks of human traffickers, many irate Gambians are demanding stiff retribution against people smugglers.
Writing on Facebook, Tijan Njie blamed the problem on smugglers who still possess the power to entice gullible would-be migrants to part with huge sums of money for such journeys that are fraught with risks.
“The Gambian public want answers, there are reports that the smugglers are all Gambians and in fact they collected hundreds of thousands of dalasis from these desperate youths” he wrote.
“We call for their immediate arrest and that smuggling people in to such dangerous journeys should henceforth carry the life sentence. The government should step up and protect young people from these criminals” he added.
President Barrow on a statutory Meet the People Tour across the country observed a minute’s silence before addressing a meeting in the coastal town of Tanji, 33km south of Banjul.
The sombre secret about Tanji was that the village like Barra was a staging post for illegal migrants in the past and offered a reminder about the recklessness with which young people embarked on dicey journeys into the unknown, many of them perishing along the way.
But none may be remembered as deadly as the journey by some 195 people who left Barra a week ago, imbued with the desperate hope of starting a better life in Europe.
WN/as/APA