Hit by COVID, Senegal’s women find renewed hope in fishing

Since her birth on Senegal’s coast, the ocean has always given Ndeye Yacine Dieng life. Her grandfather was a fisherman, and her grandmother and mother processed fish. Like generations of women, she helps support her family in the small community of Bargny by drying, smoking, salting and fermenting the catch brought home by male villagers. They were baptized by fish, these women say.

But when the pandemic struck, boats that once took as many as 50 men out to sea carried only a few. Many residents were too terrified to leave home, let alone fish, for fear of catching the virus. When local women managed to get their hands on fish to process, they lacked buyers, as markets shut down and neighboring countries closed borders. Without savings, many families went from three daily meals to one or two.

Dieng is among more than a thousand women in Bargny, and many more in other villages dotting Senegal’s coast, who process fish — the crucial link in a chain that constitutes one of the country’s largest exports and employs hundreds of thousands of its residents.

This story is funded by the European Journalism Centre’s European Development Journalism Grants program, which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. AP is responsible for all content.