Why did you study journalism?
He was a bad student. I wanted to do tourism, but I didn't have enough notice. I tried to get into journalism at the UPV/EHU and I didn't succeed. Then my parents sent me to Pamplona to study, to the University of Opus. Huge change. I was also heavy at the time, and a friend told me I wouldn't go in with Iron Maiden's t-shirt and pants, but I walked in and I stayed here.

I wasn't very clear about journalism, but I've always had something special about war journalists. I admire them, but I'm not so brave. I have some friends in this kind of work, like Mikel Aiestaran, and I get a huge envy.

Is war not a reporter, but always working for human rights?
Yes, it is. In recent years I have had the opportunity to do many interesting jobs and trips and I am very happy with it. I worked for several years with the Doctors of the World in the area of communication. At that time, very courageous projects were being developed, such as prostitution. It's a very interesting and very dirty world at once. The Doctors of the World moved to the clubs and there they started training these exploited women. They created a relationship of trust with them and helped many out of this world. Most want to go out, but many have neither training nor support network, and so they have very difficult to do so.

Now there's hardly any club. Prostitution is on the floors and it's harder to contact. They say it's the oldest trade, but it's the oldest farm. What surprises me is that the men around us, who may be our siblings or teachers, when they address these women, really think they're OK? Do you really think you're happy every day with eight or nine men in bed and doing everything you want? Do you think or prefer not to think?

He has also worked for seven years in the field of political communication with Podemos. What was the experience like?
That has been a university. I've seen politics inside and there are things that are very nice, but they're also ugly things. It's very hard, but I'm glad I learned a lot.

What was the ugest thing?
Frustration, for example. When you see the frustration, in some media they give information as they care. This allows you to think about how much they manipulate us and how they use information in the media and social networks. There's a lot of misinformation, and that's very dangerous. I see with fear, for example, the wave of xenophobic violence in the United Kingdom these days. There you see the bad speech that some politicians have made against refugees and Muslims, that they are spreading some media and encouraging people to go out into the street. Let us know if we will not see something similar here frequently.

Politics works a lot on what words to use and how to do it. One example: Talking about the migratory “waves” that reach the Canary Islands is very bad. When you hear this expression, you understand that something bad and extraordinary is happening. But if you then look at the data, you see that 69 percent of people fleeing conflict and persecution are taken by nearby nations. The five most refugee countries are Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Germany and Palestine, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). But the image they sell us is very different from the invasion.

Do you want us to feel threatened?
No doubt. In the last European elections, migration and refugees have been mentioned more than ever, as if they were criminals. But among those who come there is everything and the criminals are the least.

Europe pays Turkey, Libya and Tunisia a lot of money to capture and not let migrants out there, yet they manage to reach our country. If Europe is not going to sit down and decide what it is going to do with these people, the problem will last a very long time. For years, Germany has taken a lot of refugees, but it can no longer go on like this.

Would it be cheaper to welcome refugees in Europe and offer them a way for the future?
Of course! If the money spent to shield borders is invested in training and labour integration, better results would be achieved. A lot of people come to school and they can't work in their field because their titles aren't worth here. In times of pandemic, for example, doctors were needed and many doctors could not work. We always see them as poor people, but there's everything.

In view of this, we should ask ourselves why there is no fair distribution of refugees across Europe or why we continue to exploit some countries without embarrassment.

In Senegal, for example, we are leaving without fishing. In addition, European fishermen use trawling to fish for hake, the most damaging form. Colonization is not over. Another example: I was in Guinea-Bissau in December. It has been a Portuguese colony until 1973, but now China and Russia come to Africa and are making a new colonialism. In Guinea, China has started fishing and making roads unrestricted. In those countries they have many natural resources and there is always someone willing to steal them, but then we do not accept those there in our country. It's hypocrisy. The same applies to the arms we sell to Israel. It is very difficult to resolve all of this, but we have to look at how our countries behave in these conflicts.

He is now working as a volunteer with the Mutual Support Association. What are you doing there? The
partnership was founded in 2013, and I started a couple of years ago. In the residence they have in Rochapea, the food is distributed twice a week. On Mondays to young people on the street, almost all Moroccans and Algerians, and on Wednesdays to families. Most of them are migrants, but I have also met the families of Pamplona. They do a magnificent job. In addition, they offer young people the opportunity to enroll in training courses. They started working against evictions in the Casco Viejo and the aid network has been expanding. The concern is that more and more people are coming in and now they cannot serve everyone. Just yesterday, several kids ran out of food.

About five years ago a new project began in Navarre with about 50 young people staying in the street at the age of 18: they were given a place to sleep and the possibility to study, but it is not easy, because although they have learned it, they often remain without papers and so they cannot work. The situation is even more complicated because more and more young people are on the streets.

You are also a friend of Cheikhouna Dieng, a Senegalese who became so known in the Chantrea.
In 2017, we lived through a tough process in the neighborhood. The young Senegalese was surprised by selling clothes on the street and wanted to be expelled. There was a great movement of protection in the neighborhood. We made a demonstration of 4,000 people, and a neighborhood colleague here made a work contract for him in his workshop. It was two or three years very hard, but in the end we managed to stay here and today it has a fairly normal life. A young cousin of his, Moussa, has recently arrived, who has also been captured with t-shirts. He will soon be judged and we fear that the expulsion will be requested. What these two young people have done is to work non-stop to send money to the family, and that's what they've done. Where is the problem?

He also works as a volunteer with SMH. How did you start?
Three years ago. While I was in Oropesa, I saw Father Mari with Open Arms and other rescue boats from a German organization. I went to see Father Mari, and although the captain had no earning to speak to me, I started to insist and proposed a report to him for the News Journal. The next day, I came back, I did a report, and I started working as a communication volunteer. I've been to the clinic twice they had on the island of Chios, and this year, for the first time, I've been involved in a rescue mission.

In Chios I saw that the reality in Greece is very harsh. It is 11 kilometres from Turkey and makes the way with small boats os.Los Greek coastguards capture them and in some small boats leave them in Turkish waters for the Turks to come and search for them.

What experience has the rescue had?
Terrible. We went to Pasaia and there we did a two-week training. Meanwhile, the police conducted a harsh inspection before granting the permits. We were fourteen crew members, eight professionals and six volunteers, and if you did something wrong, you didn't have permission and you didn't finish the mission. It was great pressure. We went out very willingly in early July and had to stand in Galicia for the bad weather. On July 14, after chanting the Poor of me in Pamplona, the time came.

You usually get a call from a boat or an association called Alarm Phone. Migrants usually carry a satellite phone to be alerted by mafias. We didn't get a call. The two guards who were on guard suddenly saw the kick in front of Father Mari. They woke us up, prepared us and walked out in a hurry, in silence. There was extreme tension. The moment we saw the boat was very exciting.

And the time came.
We had two zodias. Donosti and the Girl. As we approached the skate, we observed that three more boats approached. They were Libyans. Often, the Libyan coastguards approach to obstruct, but the presence of three was not at all normal. Some had the crumbles and the face covered. The captain began to talk to them by public address and finally made a gesture for us to get closer and take liquor. These were moments of great nervousness when a refugee threw himself into the water, because what they prefer is to die rather than go to Libyan jails.

The Libyans were discussing with each other who was going to bring those sick back to Libya, when one of them realized that we were videotaping. I was recording everything and I saw how important it is that there be witnesses. It was then that we were given permission to take the refugees to Father Mari. When we finished, they reappeared, they jumped into the empty boat and took him to Libya, where they were paid a salary for carrying the empty boat.

They were not identified. One of them had a pirate flag. Then we were told that one of them was the coastguard ship, but I don't know if there was any difference between them and the Mafia.

34 people were rescued. Most were Syrians and there were also two 15-year-old Egyptian boys, a young Nigerian fleeing the death threat of the Boko Haram group and several from Bangladesh. There were two Syrian women. They were the first to help them climb Father Mari. One of them grabbed my hand and started to give me kisses as a sign of thanks. It was very exciting. I didn't know what to do. We told them that they would be quiet and that they were in Europe. Over the next few days, those women didn't speak. They barely moved. Others told us that, before climbing the skate, they spend a few days in crowded houses, and in the evening they take women to rooms where they rape almost all of them. And in this case, they saw that both had been raped. They didn't tell anything because, besides being painful, it's a very generous shame for them.

That hurts you a lot. A refugee is a concept, but when you see a person in front of you and you know everything changes.

I felt very small, Father Marin. We are very few, but we cannot look the other way. It is clear to me that I must continue to do small things.

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LAST WORD

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It's curious. Refugees are often labelled: the Senegalese are good and workers, the Moroccans are bad and conflicting. Syrians, apparently, are like us, white, and in many ways they have a life very similar to ours. Most of those of us who rescued Father Marin had studies or were in college. All young people have their Instagram accounts. One of them told us that he had to sell his tractor and his car to go to Europe, but that he did not want to sell his motorbike Harley Davison and gave it to a family member for reasons of dignity.

And not all migrants are equal, of course. Ibrahim, for example, is 23 years old. She's very sad because she doesn't have school or work and she can't tell her mother she lives on the street. Play at Paris 365 in Pamplona, but integration is nothing new cil.Dice that can return to Morocco. I know another boy from Algeria who has been sleeping six months at the train station and who was waking up every morning to go to school, without having a shower and as he could. Many are making great efforts like him, but getting papers is very difficult and if you spend all day on the street, nothing good.