Illegality, Inc by Ruben Andersson

Author:Ruben Andersson [Andersson, Ruben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part 4: Backstage Entrance

It was Amadou’s final attempt at the Ceuta fence. He had guided a group of four over the mountain passes at night. By now he knew everything. The weather had to be right. It should be raining or cold, since the soldiers were then less likely to be out; windy, so that the dogs did not smell you; and foggy, to reduce the guards’ visibility. They should climb one of the highest passes, where not even soldiers entered but where falling meant death. They had to be utterly silent, Amadou admonished his companions. Look, the fence! It was so close. A noise escaped one of the nervous migrants, limiting their options and forcing them to attack, even though the guardias were patrolling along the other side of the razor wire.

By now, Amadou had understood each component part, each sense, of the valla—sniffing guard dogs, the watchmen’s routines, the yielding razor wire, the sensors and poles and doors, the concertina and wire mesh. He was ready to take the valla system apart, as a skilled car mechanic dismembers a vehicle.

Amadou and his companions went one by one. To cross, you needed to put on old clothes. New garments snagged on the razor wire. You must wear cotton, not nylon. You had to use gloves to push the concertina, then you put your foot on top of it, to avoid it catching your clothes. Blades might cut into your arms or legs, but you had to avoid getting caught in the stomach or crotch. On the top, the razor wire could entangle and kill you, but there was a trick for getting through. Then you needed to find a pole along the inside of the fence instead of getting nervous and jumping, breaking bones. It was a six-meter fall. Amadou slid down a pole. He looked around quickly. Where was the door? In the prison in Tetuan, the nearest Moroccan city, other adventurers had told him about the doors in the inner fence. Amadou had not been sure they existed until, on an earlier attempt, guardias had entered through a door and expelled him back to Morocco. Now he spotted such a door. The trick, he had been told, was to find a small opening in it, big enough for your head. If the head went in, the body did too. Amadou crawled through. He had heard of a dog kennel, la perrera, where migrants used to hide from the guardias. In search of the kennel, he made his way into the hills, finally into Spain. He had crossed the most difficult of borders.

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