NOUADHIBOU, Mauritania (AP) — Eager students from throughout west Africa raise their hands as teachers guide them through math and classical Arabic. Then they race outdoors to meet their parents, who clean houses, drive informal taxis or gut sardines in Chinese factories.
Outside, government billboards urge these families and others to fight “migrant smuggling,” showing overcrowded boats navigating the Atlantic’s thrashing waves. Inside, posters warn the ocean can be deadly.
Such messaging is hard to escape in Nouadhibou, Mauritania’s second largest city and a launch point on an increasingly popular migrant route toward Europe. As authorities strengthen security measures on long-established routes, migrants are resorting to longer, more perilous ones. From
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