Synopsis
Thiaroye-sur-mer is a fishing community near Dakar. Its people have been living in dire misery since international agreements in the 1980s allowed European countries to overfish in African waters, taking away their livelihoods and often their only source of protein. No one keeps count anymore, but the town’s young people have been risking their lives trying to reach Spain in flimsy boats, and their deaths are in the thousands. The stories of Talla, a teacher who came back from the U.S. to try to halt the exodus, and of Modou, who almost died on his second attempt to make the crossing but who will try again, reveal the tragedy of youth who have lost all hope. A disturbing exposé of the effects of factory fishing on local people, and the shocking North-South inequalities that complicit governments allow to continue.