Sadio Keita, a 28-year-old lorry driver from Guinea, is both lucky and unlucky. He was lucky to survive the hazardous boat journey from Senegal to the Canary Islands last year, thus reaching Spain, one of the most lenient European destinations for illegal immigrants. He was unlucky to arrive just as Spanish economic growth began to slow.
"I have not found any work at all," says Mr Keita, speaking in French at an immigrant reception centre run by a Jesuit foundation in the Madrid neighbourhood of Ventilla. "If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have come."
