THE BOAT LEFT IN SILENCE - AND SO DID OUR HOPE

He didn’t leave the house like a traveler. He left like someone escaping his own life.

It was still dark when he stood at the doorway, barefoot on cold cement, holding his breath so the hinge wouldn’t squeak. In his pocket was a phone with a cracked screen. Under his shirt was a small plastic bag; two sets of clothes, a toothbrush, a folded note with a few numbers written on it, and money that didn’t belong to him, collected from friends who were also drowning, just on land. His heart was beating so loudly he feared it would wake the whole house.

In the next room, his mother slept lightly. Not because she was at peace, but because poverty trains mothers to sleep with one ear open. He watched her chest rise and fall and felt something split inside him. He wanted to kneel beside her, kiss her forehead, and say the truth: “Mama, I’m going. I can’t breathe here anymore.” But he didn’t. Because he had tried telling the truth before; about the job applications that never got replies, about the promises that never came, about the days he walked from one place to another just to return home with empty hands and a smile he forced for her sake. And every time, she looked at him like a prayer that’s afraid of being unanswered. He remembered how she says his name when she is worried, soft, like she is holding his life in her mouth.

He told himself he was doing it for her. For his father whose strength was shrinking under quiet disappointment. For his younger siblings who were starting to ask questions with their eyes: “Are we going to be okay?” He told himself he was doing it so his mother could stop pretending she wasn’t hungry when the rice was finished. So his father could stop borrowing. So his family name could stop feeling like a burden he was failing to carry. He had watched his parents grow older in real time, smiles fading, backs bending, faces changing and the helplessness of not being able to help them was eating him alive.

Outside, the street was silent, but inside him, everything was screaming.

Because leaving isn’t just about wanting “a better life.” Leaving is about shame. It’s about the daily humiliation of being young and capable and still treated like you are useless. It’s the jokes you pretend don’t hurt when people ask, “So you’re still just there?” It’s the pressure of watching your mates post new apartments, new cars, foreign stree
ts while you are still negotiating transport fare and pretending you are “planning something big.”

It’s the moment you realize you have become a grown man who can’t buy medicine for his mother without calling someone. The moment you hear your father say, “It’s okay,” but his voice sounds like defeat. The moment you start calculating your worth in remittances you haven’t sent yet. It’s the quiet terror of seeing your parents need you, and realizing love alone cannot pay bills.

So he left without saying goodbye. Not because he didn’t love them, but because love was the reason he couldn’t face them.

He walked quickly, like if he slowed down, his courage would collapse. At the corner, he met two other boys. They didn’t greet each other like friends. They nodded like people entering the same storm. Nobody spoke about death. Nobody said “ocean.” They used softer words; “the trip,” “the route,” “the hustle,” “Europe.” Words that make danger sound like a plan. Because when you say the truth out loud, your legs stop moving.

As the sun started to rise, they moved toward the river, toward the place where hope and grief stand side by side. The air smelled like salt and fear. There were faces of boys who still looked like children, eyes too loud for their bodies. There were girls holding their scarves tightly, trying to look brave, trying not to let anyone see their trembling. There were phone calls whispered into palms, messages sent quickly before the network disappears and silence takes over. Somebody typed “forgive me” and deleted it three times before sending nothing at all.

And then the boat appeared.

Not a miracle. Not a rescue. A vessel too small for the weight of human desperation it carried. A boat that became a coffin the moment it left shore because everybody there knew the truth, even if they refused to say it: that some journeys don’t end with arrival; they end with names becoming rumors, families becoming waiting rooms, parents living the rest of their lives staring at the road as if the sea will return what it stole.

When they boarded, the last piece of him that was still a son, still a child, still soft; begged him to jump back off. To run home and say, “Mama, forgive me.” But the other part of him, the part that had been bruised by rejection, neglected by policy, mocked by society’s expectations, forced his feet to stay. And the boat moved.

This is how tragedies are born in our country: not from one bad decision, but from a thousand small heartbreaks that leaders refuse to notice. From years of young people being told to “wait,” while watching the same opportunities circulate among the connected, the favored, the already comfortable. From a system that turns talent into frustration and frustration into flight.

Now we are confronted with the kind of news that should stop a nation in its tracks; reports of a migrant boat from Niumi Jinack carrying more than 190 people, including women and children, believed to have sunk with no survivors. And in the same breath, more fear, more boats unaccounted for, more families searching, more names disappearing into the Atlantic as if our youth are disposable. In some homes, the phone is charging every minute like a lifeline because as long as it rings, the mind still negotiates with hope.

Yesterday, after 24 hours, the Government finally issued an official statement (dated 26th December 2025) acknowledging reports of a missing vessel believed to have departed on 17 November 2025. We have seen the statement. We hear the words. But in moments like this, words must not be the finish line; they must be the beginning of urgent, visible action.

What makes this pain even heavier is not only the loss. It is the silence. It is the numbness. It is the feeling that the nation is mourning, but the state is merely watching.

A responsible government does not treat the death of its young people as a passing headline. A responsible government speaks to the nation with compassion, declares mourning, stands with families, mobilizes emergency response, and then most importantly, changes the conditions that are feeding the backway like a fire.

Because let us be clear: this is not just “irregular migration.” This is a referendum on opportunity. This is the evidence of a generation that has lost confidence that hard work at home will ever be rewarded.

If our young people believed there was a future here, they would not be choosing the ocean over their mother’s arms. If they could access jobs, skills, fair financing, and real pathways to dignity, they would not be risking death just to become “somebody.” If leadership treated youth development as an emergency, not a slogan, we would not be burying dreams at sea.

And yes, we must also speak to the opposition because the pain of the people cannot be a stage for personal ambition.

While families are breaking, too many political actors are still behaving like The Gambia is a prize to win, not a responsibility to carry. Too much division. Too many egos. Too many small camps and personal calculations. Too much “me” and not enough “we.” If opposition parties cannot unite around the most basic national tragedies, if they cannot stand together and say, “Enough, our youth are dying”, then what exactly are they asking the people to trust them with?

A divided opposition in the face of national suffering is not just weakness. It is complicity. It gives the ruling system room to breathe while the people suffocate. It turns politics into entertainment while the ocean turns into a graveyard.

And I want to be clear about why I’m writing this. I am not a politician. I am not seeking relevance. I am writing this as a concerned citizen because I refuse to stay silent when the lives being swallowed by the sea look exactly like mine and the lives of people I grew up with. This could be me. It could be your brother. Your sister. Your classmate. Your neighbor’s child. And if I were in their shoes, I know I would not want people to be silent either.

I know how my mum loves me. I know how my dad loves me. And I also know what it feels like to watch your parents grow older in front of your eyes, how their smiles change, how their faces change, how their strength quietly reduces while you stand there unable to help the way you want to. That helplessness is a pain many young people carry in silence until one day they decide to gamble with their life just to restore dignity to their family.

But let me be clear: this is not written to encourage any young person to take this deadly path, or to romanticize it, or to give it excuses. No. The backway is not bravery; it is a last resort born from desperation, and it ends in trauma far too often. The point of this message is to confront the conditions that are pushing our youth to the edge and to demand that our country builds a future that makes the sea unnecessary.

We cannot mourn the dead and ignore the living. We cannot cry today and return to business as usual tomorrow. We cannot keep calling these tragedies “unfortunate” while refusing to confront the policies, the corruption, the complacency, and the leadership failure that keep pushing young people toward the Atlantic and the mediterreanean.

The government must stop hiding behind silence and start acting like a state that values its citizens. The opposition must stop competing for scraps and start building unity with seriousness. Civil society, religious leaders, community elders, youth groups; everyone must treat this as the national emergency it is.

Because every time we normalize this, we send a message to the next desperate boy sitting quietly in his room, listening to his mother breathe in the dark: “Go ahead. The country won’t stop you. The country won’t even notice.”

And that is the most terrifying part of all.

May Allah (SWT) forgive those we have lost and grant them mercy beyond what this world gave them. May He strengthen the families whose hearts have been shattered. And may this tragedy finally force our leaders; government and opposition alike to choose The Gambia over themselves, before the next boat leaves, and another mother wakes up to a silence she will never recover from.

By Amadou Bah. Ohio University '2026, New York University AD' 2024, MA in International Development (Econ.), BA in Economics | Minor in Business Studies.