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‘Now I wait for Pope Leo,’ says the Canary Islands migrant who moved Pope Francis
The young Senegalese man survived a shipwreck in 2020 during which he witnessed the death of his brother and many others. After arriving at the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria, he was welcomed by a local family and now works as a chef. In 2023, he wrote a letter to Pope Francis inviting him to visit the archipelago. On 11 June, he will welcome Pope Leo XIV instead, “I would like to ask him to help us do more for migrants who die along the journey.”
By Salvatore Cernuzio – Madrid
The wind, the thirst, the cayuco steadily taking on water, the waves, the darkness, the people who died at sea, among them his own brother. Then came a new beginning: a warm welcome, work as a chef, and an invitation to visit the Canary Islands, together with an offer to personally accompany the Pope through the port of Arguineguín. For years, the harbour was known as el muelle de la vergüenza—“the pier of shame”—because of the overcrowding and precarious conditions in which thousands of migrants were forced to live.
Pope Francis was deeply moved when he read the words written by Ousseynou Fall, a former fisherman who fled Senegal and now lives on Gran Canaria.
In a letter, Ousseynou recounted his story: the story of leaving Africa, his homeland, and beginning life anew in the Canary Islands. It is a story in which tragedy was met with generosity and selfless solidarity; a story shared by many migrants who survived the notorious Atlantic Route and reached the shores of the Canary Islands, unlike so many others who never made it.
Pope Francis’ wish fulfilled by Pope Leo
Ousseynou and several other young migrants had written to the Pope, who made the issue of migration one of the defining priorities of his pontificate, inviting him to visit the places that had enabled them to begin a new life.
In his letter, delivered to Pope Francis during the papal journey to Luxembourg and Belgium by Spanish Radio COPE journalist Eva Fernández, Ousseynou wrote that such a visit would be “a great comfort” to him and to his companions.
Moved by their stories, Pope Francis decided to visit the archipelago, envisaging it as the third stage of a journey dedicated to migration after Lampedusa and Lesbos. Illness and, later, his death prevented the trip from taking place.
Now, Pope Leo XIV has taken up his predecessor’s wish and will visit the Canary Islands on 11 and 12 June at the conclusion of his Apostolic Journey to Spain.
Ousseynou will be there to welcome the Pope, together with other migrants, relatives of those who disappeared at sea, rescue teams and volunteers. It will be the very place where, six years ago, he arrived cold, exhausted and thirsty, sleeping beside a drain on the pier, before being strengthened by the warmth—above all the human warmth—of the local community.
The crossing from Senegal
“If I could speak with the Pope, the first thing I would ask is that he help us do much more for migrants who die along the way,” Ousseynou told Vatican Media. “People who wanted to come here but never made it. My brother also died on the journey. And so did many others.”
He was reached by telephone during a break from his work in the kitchen of a hotel, where he spends long days employed as a chef. He gladly takes a few moments to share fragments of his life.
Originally from the coastal city of Saint-Louis in Senegal, Ousseynou worked as a fisherman before deciding to leave, together with his brother, because of the crisis affecting the local fishing industry.
He arrived on Gran Canaria on 12 November 2020 aboard a cayuco, a traditional wooden boat, after a harrowing voyage marked by nights of extreme thirst, panic, cries and tears, and the loss of fellow travellers at sea.
Arrival in Spain
“It was early morning when I arrived,” Ousseynou recalls. “In the hours beforehand, our boat had taken on too much water. Then it began to sink. The rescue team—the Salvamar Menkalinan—spotted us at sea. They rescued us there and transferred us onto a smaller vessel that brought us to Arguineguín.”
That morning the pier was already overcrowded. Nearly 2,000 men and women had been sleeping there for days beneath tents and blankets, their only protection from the sun and rain. During that month alone, more than 6,300 migrants passed through the small harbour on the south-western coast of Gran Canaria.
Awaiting the Pope
“A few days later, the Red Cross transferred us to a hotel,” he continued.
While searching for food and clothing together with a cousin, he met a couple, Fermina and Cristobál. Today he calls them mamá y papá. They welcomed him into their home and ensured he lacked nothing.
“They were the ones who took me in. This is where I live now,” Ousseynou explained.
With the support of a local assistance group and the parish of Arguineguín, he learned Spanish. When he arrived, he could neither read nor write. Over the years he learned the language and acquired a profession. Today he is fully integrated into life on Gran Canaria.
And at the port he still visits from time to time, on the morning of 11 June, he hopes to welcome Pope Leo XIV. Not simply as a migrant, but as an ordinary citizen, a free man whose life was saved and whose dignity was restored.
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