On the beach of Kafountine in southwestern Senegal, life moves at a never-ending pace. During the day, the voices of hundreds of fishermen and traders crowd the shore, bargaining over prices among seashells and fish scraps, blending with the roar of the Atlantic waves. The more than 700 colorful pirogue boats that line the coast continuously come and go between fishing trips. A pungent smell wafts over from the nearby fish-drying area, from which dried fish is exported across West Africa.
In recent years, the beach has also become a main departure point for the boats that carry young Senegalese people who, tired of a life with few economic prospects, set off along the route to the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. The route is considered one of the deadliest in the world—and still, approximately 40,000 migrants make the journey each year.
Davide Bonaldo
The beach of Kafountine is filled with pirogues, fishing boats that are also used to attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean and reach the Canary Islands.
The beach is in Casamance, the southernmost region of the country, which is cut off from the rest of Senegal by its border with its neighbor, The Gambia. It has a distinct climate, culture, and ethnic composition. Years of political instability caused by rebels from the MFDC separatist movement (Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de la Casamance) have long hindered economic development in the region, compounded by its geographic isolation. Casamance faces what the United Nations calls “alarming poverty rates,” as high as 51.1 percent and 64.4 percent in two of its towns, Ziguinchor and Sédhiou.
Fishing, which has always been the main industry on the coast, has become increasingly unprofitable for local fishermen in recent years due to increased operating costs and over-exploited fishing grounds. Foreign companies have taken a foothold in the area, controlling more 40 percent of the fishing vessels operating in the region, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation, the majority of them based in Spain or China. These vessels use industrial fishing techniques including bottom trawling, which destroy marine ecosystems where fish reproduce and prevent fish stocks from regenerating.
Davide Bonaldo
Fishermen return to the beach of Kafountine after a day at sea.
Climate change has also made a mark on the local fishing economy, as rising sea levels and increasing water salinity damage the mangrove forests which provide habitat for many local fish species. More recently, the growing presence of migrants from neighboring countries has further increased competition in the labor market.
Since finishing his studies in 2021, twenty-seven-year-old Abdourahman Sanè has found occasional jobs, but nothing steady enough to build an independent life or start a family of his own.
“Every day I wake up, my family asks me for something, and I have nothing to give them,” Abdourahman says.
The ongoing economic uncertainty prompted Abdourahman to attempt to migrate from Senegal to Europe by sea last year. Despite the number of people willing to take on the risk, the route to the Canary Islands sees up to thirty-three deaths per day, making it one of the most dangerous in the world. The strong currents in the Atlantic Ocean can overpower the small fishing boats often used on the journey, leaving them adrift in the open sea, far from any coastline.
Davide Bonaldo
Abdourahman Sanè is hopeful to get help from Kakolum later in the year. If he doesn’t, he says he will attempt to make the journey to Spain.
When a boat is ready to leave Kafountine for the Canary Islands, word spreads through WhatsApp groups with the time and place of departure, which is typically at night from the village beach.
“I know it’s not easy to be far from loved ones, but you have to try to support your family,” Abdourahman says.
The boat Abdourahman was in didn’t make it far. Senegalese authorities, which are partnered with Spain and receive funding from the European Union to curb illegal migration, stopped Abdourahman’s boat before it could depart. He says he would have tried again, but before leaving again he learned about Kakolum, an NGO founded by Spanish humanitarian worker Maria Bujons, which provides young people in Senegal with jobs installing wells and solar panels, and participating in small agricultural projects.
Davide Bonaldo
Climate change is causing erosion on the beach of Kafountine.
Kakolum sponsors several programs to bolster local communities, including water infrastructure, education, and maternal health projects. In its food and autonomy program, Kakolum selects women and young applicants, to whom the organization provides training and resources to create gardens and produce food. The goal, Bujons says, is to provide an alternative to forced migration.
“Many families here have land plots but lack the means to cultivate them,” Bujons says. “We select the most vulnerable young people [and] . . . we give them what they need so they can cultivate the land and earn a dignified income without risking their lives in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.”
But the demand is always much higher than the number of people the organization can materially support, Bujons says. Out of the sixty requests Kakolum received last year, it could only help eighteen people.
One of the organization’s beneficiaries is Moussa Sonko, a man in his early thirties from the village of Djannah in southern Senegal. When I visit him, he proudly shows me his mango trees and vegetable garden, which he’s built with help from Kakolum. In 2025, he boarded a pirogue bound for the Canary Islands twice without telling his family, but neither attempt was successful in reaching Spanish soil. The first time, the boat was intercepted by the Moroccan Navy off the coast of Mauritania, just north of Senegal. A few months later, Moussa tried again. This time, the Spanish islands were in sight when they were again stopped by the Moroccan Navy. After a month in Moroccan prison, everyone aboard the boat was deported back to Senegal.
Davide Bonaldo
Moussa Sonko in his vegetable garden, which he has been able to grow with support from Kakolum. Among other things, the organization provided him with the solar panels he is leaning on.
After paying cumulatively more than 100,000 CFA francs (approximately 175 U.S. dollars) for both journeys, Moussa was left without money, work, and hope. When he returned, his mother introduced him to Kakolum. The organization selected him to participate in a local agricultural project, providing him with a well, solar panels, and seeds to grow food. Now, with the money he earns from selling what he grows, he is able to support his family and pay for his younger brother’s university studies in Dakar, Senegal’s capital city.
Davide Bonaldo
A box of USAID aid in Kakolum’s office
NGOs like Kakolum, which has been able to reach more than 40,000 people since its establishment in 2017, are often the only tangible way to break the vicious cycle of poverty that many young people in Senegal are experiencing. Most of Kakolum’s funding comes either from private donations or from European regional or local authorities, making it dependent on the political will of different administrations. Other NGOs throughout the continent used to depend on funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was dismantled last year by the Trump Administration—leaving many having to scramble to find new ways of financing themselves, either through private donations or from local governments.
“Many NGOs that depended on [USAID funding] have had to turn to these types of funds, and now we find ourselves competing with many more NGOs for already limited resources, which makes us all more vulnerable,” Bujons says.
Abdourahman has applied for training and agricultural materials from Kakolum and will receive a response in September. If he is not selected, he will try again to board a pirogue and leave Senegal.
“I know it’s not easy, that it means risking my life,” Abdourahman says, “but it is better to die than to remain poor.”
Some young people in Senegal have begun to take matters into their own hands in an effort to improve economic conditions, creating associations that create jobs in their communities. One of them is Tidiane Faye, a thirty-five-year-old who founded the Kassofor Djindem association in 2023 in the village of Djindem near Kafountine, where he opened up his own plot of land to cultivation by other villagers. The organization, which currently includes fifty-two people, many of whom are women, has built a Tolou Ker, a traditional Senegalese garden characterized by its circular shape around a central chicken coop.
Davide Bonaldo
A traditional Tolou Ker from above, with a central chicken pen and circular vegetable garden.
Davide Bonaldo
Tidiane Faye in the Tolou Ker of Djindem, a community garden where people of the village can cultivate the land together.
“I never thought about emigrating,” Tidiane says. “I was offered it many times, but I want to stay here, work here. I have friends who left seven, eight years ago and now only speak to their families by phone. I couldn’t do that.”
He and his collaborators now support themselves by selling vegetables and eggs at the market. However, initiatives like this remain the exception, not the rule, and on their own they can hardly compensate for the country’s structural problems.
As often happens throughout the continent, land in Africa is not only the main source of life for its inhabitants but is also a target for exploitation by foreign companies, including U.S.-based companies like Dominion Farms and Herakles Capital, which have come under fire for their involvement in land grabbing throughout Africa.
Davide Bonaldo
Aerial view of the mine in southwestern Senegal.
About five miles north of Kafountine, the Australian company Astron began building a mining site in 2015 in the village of Niafrang. It stretches across a coastal dune just adjacent to the sea, within a mangrove forest in the Aire Marine Protégée d’Abéné marine sanctuary. Due to community organizing and political gridlock, the mine has yet to open. Local resistance emerged soon after the company’s arrival to oppose the project and its environmental and economic consequences. But Senegalese federal and regional authorities, driven by economic interests, still approved the exploitation of the land rich in zircon, a mineral used in the ceramic and metallurgical industries.
Davide Bonaldo
Ousmane Sanè, a prominent anti-mine activist, outside his house in Niafrang. The mangrove forest that surrounds him will be wiped out if the mine expands.
The company arrived promising to build roads and schools and create jobs. But before Senegalese mining company Harmony Group assumed leadership of the project, all Astron had done was dump gravel on the main road of the village, while failing to employ any workers from Casamance. In December, the Senegalese Supreme Court ruled in favor of the local community, overturning the decree that authorized the mining project. Despite this, the government has not enforced the ruling, leaving the villagers on their own to protect their land.
In these fertile lands rich in rare minerals, most young people are not able to put down roots.
“If there’s no work here, I’d rather try and leave on a boat,” Abdourahman says. “Canary Islands, that’s the destination.”