The new shepherds of Spain: African migrants take up a neglected rural trade

LOS CORTIJOS, Spain (AP) — The bells and bleats faded as Osam Abdulmumen, a migrant from Sudan, herded sheep back from pasture, the sun setting over a centuries-old farm in Spain’s arid heartland.

From dawn to dusk, Abdulmumen, 25, has looked over a flock of 400 animals for months in Los Cortijos, a village of 850 people in the plains of Castile-La Mancha, the region in central Spain made famous by the 17th-century classic “Don Quixote.”

Los Cortijos is among hundreds of rural villages and towns in the region coping with depopulation that has made it tough to fill a job that has existed since biblical times, but which Spaniards seldom pursue these days: shepherding.

To fill that gap and also find work for recent migrants, a government program is training arrivals like Abdulmumen — many