The places of those leaving on the boats are quickly filled by those arriving in the city. Their story is always the same. They have fled poverty or war back home and want a new life and a job in Europe. Umoli has a tattered blue notebook full of website addresses for universities in Britain. He wants to study economics at Bristol.
Life is a risk.
You have to take risks to get what you want, he said, sitting in a dingy hostel deep in the old city of Tangier. Abdul and Mohammed are people smugglers. If Umoli is going to get across to Europe he will need the help of the likes of them middlemen who arrange deals between the refugees and the kingpins controlling the trafficking routes. They were sitting in a caf surrounded by a fog of hashish smoke from a joint. In front of them sat a Nigerian, Sunday Fawi Adebiye, who had been waiting for an uncle in the United States to send him money.