THIAROYE-SUR-MER, Senegal (AP) — Salamba Ndiaye was 22 when she first tried to come to Spain. She dreamed of a career as a real estate agent. Unbeknownst to her parents, she made it onto a small fishing boat called a pirogue, but Senegalese police intercepted the vessel before it could set sail.

A year later, Ndiaye tried again and managed to leave the coast, but this time a violent storm forced the boat to stop in Morocco, where Ndiaye and the other passengers were sent back to Senegal.

Despite her two failed attempts, the 28-year-old is determined to try again. “If you told me now that there was a boat to Spain, I would stop this interview and get on board,” she said.

Ndiaye is one of thousands of young Senegalese who try to leave the West African country every year they go to Spain to escape poverty and lack of job opportunities. Most of them go to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa that serves as a springboard to mainland Europe.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,300 people have landed on the Canary Islands126% more than in the same period last year, according to statistics from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.

At the beginning of the year, the EU signed a 210 million euro deal with Mauritania to prevent smugglers from sending boats to Spain. But the agreement has so far had little impact on the number of migrants arriving.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will visit Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia this week to combat illegal migration. The West African countries are the main entry points for migrants travelling by boat.

The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. Since there are no exact figures on departures from West Africa, the Spanish migrant rights group Walking Borders estimates that there have been thousands of victims this year alone.

Migrant boats that get lost or encounter problems often disappear in the Atlantic, some drift across the ocean for months until they found in the Caribbean And Latin America carrying only human remains.

But the danger of the route does not deter people like Ndiaye, who are desperately trying to make a better life for themselves and their families in Europe. “Barsa wala Barsakh,” or “Barcelona or die” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages, is a common motto of those who dare to take the deadly route.

“Even if we stay here, we are in danger,” said Cheikh Gueye, 46, a fisherman from Thiaroye-sur-Mer, the same village on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital where Ndiaye comes from.

“If you are sick and cannot pay for treatment, aren’t you in danger? So we take the risk. Either we get to our destination or we don’t,” he added.

Gueye also tried to reach Europe via the Atlantic route, but due to bad weather he only made it as far as Morocco and was sent back to Senegal.

Like many inhabitants of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, he earned his living as a fisherman before Fish stocks began to dwindle a decade ago due to overfishing.

“These big boats have changed everything. In the past, even children could catch fish here with a net,” said Gueye, pointing to the shallow water.

“Now we have to go out more than 50 kilometers before we find fish, and even then we don’t find enough, just a little,” he adds.

Gueye and Ndiaye blame the fishing agreements between Senegal, the European Union and China, which allow foreign industrial trawlers to fish in Senegalese waters. Although the agreements set catch limits, controlling the catches of the large boats from Europe, China and Russia is difficult.

Ahead of the Spanish prime minister’s visit to Senegal on Wednesday, Ndiaye’s mother, 67-year-old Fatou Niang, said the Senegalese and Spanish governments should focus on giving jobs to young people in the West African country to deter them from emigrating.

“These children know nothing but the sea, and now there is nothing in the sea. If you do something for the youth, they will not leave,” says Niang.

“But if not, we cannot force them to stay. There is no work here,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Ndeye Sene Mbengue in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

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