Money Gambians send home from Europe is a lifeline for their families but the sacrifices take a toll

KWINELLA, Gambia — Binta Bah met her husband last year on a dating app and instantly fell in love. They spent hours every day glued to their mobile phones and soon got married on a video call.

But they've met in person only once, when Suleyman Bah came home to Gambia for a visit, months after the wedding. He is one of tens of thousands of West Africans who have undertaken the perilous journey to Europe, and is now working in a factory in Germany.

Every month he sends money home. He is not alone — Gambians abroad send hundreds of millions of dollars a year in remittances, according to the World Bank. The remittances account for a fourth of the tiny country's economy — the highest such proportion on the African continent.

Even as European countries increase their efforts to keep migrants out, Gambians and other West Africans keep risking the dangerous route, known locally as “the backway,” in unsafe boats across the Atlantic Ocean — or trek hundreds of miles across the Sahara Desert and then cross the Mediterranean Sea.

Almost 10% of Gambia’s population of 2.7 million has left the country, most of them young men from rural areas. The money they send is an economic lifeline for their families but their absence weighs heavily on their communities.

“It’s difficult to be apart,” the 24-year-old Binta Bah said of her long-distance marriage. “But it’s good when the other person takes care of you.”

“Whenever I need something, like to see a doctor, he sends the money straight away,” added Bah, who lives with her mother-in-law.

Life is increasingly difficult in their village of Kwinella, where villagers for centuries grew rice, maize, millet and peanuts to make a living. But ravages of climate change and outdated farming practices have made their traditional lifestyle unsustainable.

Moustapha Sabally, deputy chief of Kiang Central province, which includes Kwinella, said the rains have become unpredictable for farming, which is still done by hand and without tractors. Few young men are around to do that work, he said, and estimated that about 70% of them left the province for the capital, Banjul, or for Europe.

That leaves women and older people who struggle with the long and laborious work on the land, forcing the community to depend on remittances, Sabally said.

Without the remittances, "life would be very difficult,” he said.

Gambia, the smallest country on the African mainland, is surrounded by Senegal except for a sliver of the coast where the Gambia River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. According to the World Bank, 75% of its population lives in poverty and there is virtually no industry. The economy relies on imports, and living costs have skyrocketed since the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 60% of Gambians are under 25, and nearly half of them are unemployed. Despite European Union's efforts in West Africa to reduce the number of migrants, the lack of jobs reinforces the conviction of many that leaving is their only option.

Last year alone, over 8,000 Gambians arrived in Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Many others die trying. Earlier this year, a boat carrying 300 migrants, mostly from Gambia and Senegal, capsized off Mauritania; more than a dozen were killed and at least 150 others went missing. Last year, a young man from Kwinella drowned on his way to Europe.

Because the journey is so risky, most young men slip away for Europe without letting their loved ones know they're leaving.

Musukebbe Manjang's 39-year-old husband left Kwinella for Italy 10 years ago, after he could no longer make enough money from construction work. She never encouraged him to leave, “the risk was just too high,” she said.

One evening, when Manjang was pregnant with their third child, her husband's younger brother called him from Italy, and he simply disappeared without a word. He later called to say he had left for Europe.

Then she heard nothing for nine months, and her anger turning to fear. When he finally arrived in Italy, he called and explained that he had been kidnapped in Libya, long a key starting point for many Mediterranean crossings to Europe.

These days, Manjang's husband sends around 14,000 dalasi, or $200, a month, enough to cover the children's school fees, food and clothes, she said. But on a personal level, it's been difficult.

“He misses all the important moments,” she said. “He hasn't even met our youngest daughter.”

Gambia's central bank says remittances amounted to over $730 million last year but experts warn that the rising costs of living will push more men to migrate abroad.

Eliman Jallow, 42, the Gambia-born founder of a U.K.-based company that facilitates sending money home to Africa, says his clients are a mix, from highly skilled workers to manual laborers.

The son of Ansumana Sanneh from Kaiaf, a village not far from Kwinella, was a teacher. He left for Europe because he could barely make a living on a teacher's monthly salary of 5,000 dalassi, about $70.

His journey was cut short when he was kidnapped by a Libyan militia and Sanneh paid the equivalent of $700 in ransom before his son was freed and returned home.

Sanneh believes the dreams of the young village men are fueled by the misguided idea of Europe as a promised land. But with rising costs of living in European countries, migrants today are able to send less money home than in the past, he said.

The gamble is simply not worth the risks, Sanneh said.

But stories of success journeys and evidence of what remittances can do often outweigh such words of caution — large concrete village homes built with money sent back are solid; images posted on social media by migrants who work in Europe appeal to the young men still in the village.

Despite his ordeal, Sanneh's son hopes to find a way to leave Gambia again.

Not far from their home, a group of teenagers practiced a dance routine in front of a stylish brick house, its driveway lined with spotless pink tiles. The teens were recording a video for TikTok, they said, and chose the prettiest — and largest — village house for the background.

The house, they said, belongs to a family whose young man migrated to the United States, for many, the most coveted migrant destination.

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