Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of the Tunisian capital after a lawyer was allegedly tortured by police.
Lawyers in the north African nation of Tunisia have launched a one-day strike following the recent arrest of two of their colleagues, as opposition to repressive measures by President Kais Saied intensifies.
Hundreds of people took to the streets of the capital city of Tunis on Thursday, voicing anger over the arrest of the two lawyers, one of whom was allegedly tortured during detention. Two journalists were also recently arrested.
“No fear, no terror. Power belongs to the people,” protesters chanted near the Palace of Justice.
The government has denied any wrongdoing or abuses, but has faced persistent criticism for moves to consolidate power and crack down on dissent. Demonstrations also took place last week, calling on President Saied – whom critics have claimed has become increasingly authoritarian since taking power in 2019 – to set a date for elections after controversially shuttering parliament and expanding executive powers.
Tunisian police raided the bar association’s headquarters on Monday to arrest Mahdi Zagrouba, a lawyer who has been critical of the president. Another lawyer, Sonia Dahmani, had been detained over the weekend.
The association said that Zagrouba was tortured and that his body showed signs of abuse, including bruises. Both Zagrouba and Dahmani were charged under a controversial cybercrime law targeting “fake news”.
“We categorically deny that the lawyer was subjected to torture or ill-treatment. It is a scenario to escape responsibility after it was proven that he assaulted a policeman during a protest this week,” Tunisian Ministry of Interior official Fakher Bouzghaia said.
“We demand an apology from the authorities for the enormous blunders committed,” bar association President Hatem Mziou said, referring to the arrests.
“We are fighting for a democratic climate and respect for freedoms,” he added.
Sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants fleeing northwards away from war, conflict and corrupt governments are ending up trapped in Tunisia, unable to move on to Europe or return home.
Across Tunisia, signs of growing hostility towards these arrivals are apparent.
The thousands living in makeshift camps are under pressure from a frustrated population and a government that analysts say is out of options.
On Friday, security forces raided two temporary camps and a protest site in the capital, Tunis, forcing more than 500 refugees onto buses to the Algerian border where they were abandoned. Some others may have been expelled to Libya.
The Refugees in Libya organisation described a wretched journey for the asylum seekers, many travelling with infants, who were refused help from hostile people in Tunisia and blocked from accessing transport back to Tunis.
Outside Sfax, 278km (172 miles) south of Tunis on the coast, thousands of sub-Saharan Africans, many of them registered refugees, shelter in open fields, attacked by security services and residents.
Refugees in Libya shared a video of 400 refugees and migrants they said had been seized from Sfax, as well as some from the Tunis camps, being expelled to Libya on May 2. The only indication the NGO has of what happened to them is a message it received on Tuesday originating from Libya’s al-Assa prison, 19km (12 miles) from the border.
👀a footage recorded on May 2, 2024 at the border region of Libya-Tunisia shows the exchange of migrants and refugees caught at gunpoint from Sfax and Tunis.
This practice of state-to-state human trafficking have been happening since July last year.
— Refugees In Libya (@RefugeesinLibya) May 4, 2024
On Monday, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied confirmed the expulsion to the National Security Council, blaming unnamed “others” for the migration crisis before lambasting “traitors” who had allowed them to enter Tunisia.
Competition for limited resources
Living standards in Tunisia are falling, with its own migration statistics testament to a lack of hope.
The high unemployment that caused its 2011 revolution remains, while an estimated 17 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Some 17,000 irregular Tunisian arrivals landed in Italy in 2023, many from working-class areas where refugees stay, like the industrial areas around Sfax where finding casual labour can be the difference between eating or not.
There, Tunisians find themselves competing with refugees and migrants for diminishing resources.
There has also been a surge in suspicion of outsiders, echoed in Saied’s rhetoric and press attacks on “foreign” NGOs such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, telling the public to distrust them for their international links and blaming them for the “disruptive” refugee presence.
Public figures, including Member of Parliament Badreddine Gammoudi, are also calling for the establishment of citizen militias to fight the “conspiracy” of “suspicious entities” looking to “settle refugees and migrants in Tunisia”.
“Tensions are rising across Tunisia,” Hamza Meddeb, of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said. “We’re seeing the beginning of citizen militias and an angry public attacking the migrants. Something’s going to give … it’s inevitable. Tunisia has basically become a trap for migrants,” he said.
Ce qui se passe actuellement à Sfax est honteux. Le pire, c’est que l’État et les prétendus politiciens sont tous complices. Rappelons que la Tunisie compte plus de 12 000 réfugiés, majoritairement en Italie, où ils sont traités avec dignité. pic.twitter.com/EHA7pNKsDC
In Sfax, citizens have attacked refugees with fireworks and in the farming and fishing town of al-Amra, they protested against refugees sheltering on farmland, saying farmers needed it to feed their families.
Channelling public suspicions, Saied paints Tunisia as a victim of a conspiracy to overrun it with refugees.
At a Tunisian National Security Council meeting on Monday, he accused “traitors” of receiving millions to do that, claiming to have seen a document “proving” more than 20 million dinars ($6.4m) from an unnamed organisation were being funnelled unofficially for a migrant centre in Sfax.
(Al Jazeera)
Dangerous – but impossible to return home
A common refrain in Tunisia is for Black refugees and migrants to be deported to their countries of origin.
The IOM estimates some 15,000 people are camped in olive groves outside Sfax. The UNHCR said it registered 11,535 refugees between January 2023 and April of this year, bringing the total number in the country to 16,500.
Many are likely sleeping in the fields outside Sfax, or near Zarzis on the Libya border and various other points.
It is uncomfortable and dangerous, but for many, going home is simply not possible.
Salahadin, 26, a former nurse in Sudan, told Al Jazeera in March of leaving El Geneina in West Darfur in August. Returning to Sudan was not an option.
“They [the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group] killed my people, my family, all of them … killed,” he said flatly.
Abdul, 24, who had worked in the mines of Sierra Leone from the age of eight alongside his father, had a similarly tragic story.
“I saw a lot of the white people there,” he said, describing Lebanese, Israelis and Americans who went to Sierra Leone for its diamonds, gold and cobalt. “I worked with the slaves,” he said. “A lot of child slaves.”
“I saw them [the mine owners] kill people,” he said. “They have this tradition where they kill someone and bury them in the bank. It’s good luck.”
Waters calm as summer approaches
Meddeb of the Carnegie Center said public feeling would not allow Saied to settle migrants at the camp. “Public feeling wouldn’t allow for it. He can’t expel them, either … all he can do is push them around the country and make life difficult for them,” he said.
As the numbers of refugees and migrants increase in Tunisia, the waters between Africa and Europe are calming as summer approaches and passage north becomes easier. Irregular migration will return to the top of the European political agenda.
Italy and the European Union consistently try to externalise their migration concerns to Tunisia and Libya, urging each to halt the flow of desperate people from their shores.
“That migration is thought to be a destabilising force within Europe appears to have become a widely accepted truth, both within Europe and elsewhere,” Ahlam Chemlali, a researcher in migration and externalisation at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said.
“However, there are other factors at work here. We have European [Commission and Parliament] elections coming up and … we’re seeing hardline parties challenging for power in France and Germany, as well as that already governing in Italy. All of them want to deflect from their own problems and be seen as being tough on migration,” she said.
In mid-April, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with a large ministerial delegation, made a fourth visit in less than a year to Tunisia to conclude deals she later said were hallmarks of her Mattei Plan – partnerships with African states on energy transfers in return for them preventing irregular migration.
In March, the Financial Times reported that the EU was to make 165 million euros ($177m) available to Tunis over three years to help limit migration – far more than the figure the bloc had previously publicly admitted to.
On Thursday, Tunisia’s Interior Minister Kamal Feki met with his counterparts from Libya, Algeria and Italy in Rome to discuss migration. The outcome, while officially unknown, appears to be the destruction of the makeshift camps and border transfers to Libya.
The increased tension in Tunisia is the result of this politicking, Chemlali said. “These are the consequences of border externalisation policies, which de facto are trapping thousands of people within Tunisia, while reinforcing the president’s racialised attacks on migrants and encouraging his deepening authoritarianism.”
Tunisia’s financial difficulties are worsened by Saied refusing to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund, whose requirement of economic reforms he dismissed as “diktats”. Instead, he relies on loans and aid packages from the EU and Arab states to paper over the cracks in the subsidy-reliant economy.
Algeria, in particular, has emerged as a source of both financial support and energy for Tunisia.
“Tunisia has become a diplomatic minnow under Saied,” Meddeb continued. “He’s ideologically and financially subservient to Algeria and Europe. He relies entirely upon Algeria for gas and financial aid,” he said, referring to a $300m loan from Algeria in December.
“If Algeria cuts Tunisia’s gas, it could last on its own for around 24 hours. That’s it. If Algeria wants to push its irregular migrants out, as it appears to, it can direct them back to Niger or, increasingly, into Tunisia.”
Anecdotal reports suggest Algerian security patrols are driving intercepted refugees to the border and telling them to follow old mining tracks into Tunisia and to not return.
Protesters demonstrate outside the European Union delegation in Tunis over the bloc’s externalisation policies (Al Jazeera)
Dead end
Tunisia’s position at the northernmost tip of Africa means it was always likely to be a dead end for the hopes of those fleeing from across the continent.
Conflict in Sudan has displaced 7.5 million people. Coups, the devastating effects of global warming, and intense competition for remaining resources have displaced 13.6 million people this year across Central and West Africa.
What this means to the 30 or so expelled people that the Refugees in Libya NGO are still searching for is uncertain. They are lost in Tunisia’s north.
According to the organisation, trains have barred them from boarding and shopkeepers have refused to serve them, scared of rumours that helping Black refugees has been criminalised.
With no alternative, the men, women and children have resorted to sleeping in caves.
They continue to walk. There isn’t much else they can do.
Tunis, Tunisia – Teams of refuse workers are busy in the deserted alleyway outside the International Organization for Migration (IOM) offices in Tunis. A nearby park stands empty.
In both, large piles of refuse are the only evidence of the hundreds of sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants who sheltered here until recently.
In the early hours of Friday morning, police swept into both camps, plus a protest site outside the offices of the UNHCR a few miles distant, clearing them of the shelters erected there and bundling the men, women and children onto municipal buses to the Algerian border.
The Refugees in Libya organisation claims they were taken off the buses near the border town of Jendouba – whose governorate borders Algeria – where they were left without food or water to fend for themselves.
The raids in Tunis are the latest example of an increasingly hostile environment taking hold in Tunisia. One where irregular sub-Saharan African arrivals, their numbers swelling by the day, find themselves attacked by both security services and politicians, forced to shelter in open fields while increasingly vulnerable to kidnapping and ransom.
Who they are
There are currently tens of thousands of irregular sub-Saharan African arrivals sheltering in Tunisia, nearly all hoping to continue their months-long journeys on to Europe.
🚨Ongoing mass desert dumping by the Tunisian authorities.
Yesterday at approximately 3 am, multiple police forces including special riot control and anti-terrorism units dismantled the protest camp outside the UNHCR office in the Lac zone of Tunis. Hundreds of refugees and… pic.twitter.com/5uaYxDmR75
— Refugees In Libya (@RefugeesinLibya) May 3, 2024
Total numbers are impossible to confirm. However, the IOM estimates that about 15,000 may be living in the fields near the coastal city of Sfax after police ejected them from the centre in September.
Some have returned to the outskirts of the city, squatting in the working-class districts close to the rail tracks. More shelter in the fields near Zarzis, close to the Libyan border, clustering around the UNHCR office in hopes of securing refugee accreditation and a degree of protection in a country that offers none.
Some 550 were estimated to have been living rough in Tunis at the time of Friday’s police raid. Outside the offices of the IOM, many families had sheltered in structures of timber and tarpaulin. Among them were a large number of children and newborn babies, including Freedom, a four-month-old boy born in Tunisia to a Nigerian mother, Gift.
“I named him that because I need freedom,” she had told Al Jazeera, “I need to know freedom. There is no freedom for us,” she says.
Gift had entered the country last summer through Libya, where a militia patrolling the desert had taken her prisoner, holding her for seven months before her family in Nigeria could raise her ransom.
Gift and Freedom’s location is currently unknown.
Cleanup crews clearing the alleyway by the IOM office in Tunis on May 3, 2024 [Al Jazeera]
Unwanted
Conditions in the fields near Sfax are dire, 37-year-old Richard from Ghana said.
Violent police raids and surveillance have grown more frequent and disease has gradually taken hold in a community deprived of medical care. The fear of arrest and deportation to the desert borders with Libya and Algeria is ubiquitous.
“Conditions there are bad. Very, very bad,” Richard said.
He had returned from Sfax to the fragile security of the IOM camp in Tunis a week earlier.
“I am sick, you can see. My body hurts,” he said. “I have to go to hospital but they give you no assistance. In Sfax, it is very difficult.”
He gestured to his friend Solomon, 36, who was coughing: “My brother here is really sick. He’s been coughing for some time,” he said.
“I started to cough three days ago. All my body hurts. Lots of people at the camp had the same symptoms,” Solomon said.
On top of the spread of disease is the ongoing threat from the police. Camps around Sfax where the undocumented shelter offer no protection from police surveillance, which has taken to the skies recently.
“I saw the drones,” Solomon says. “I was at Kilometre 31. They were going up and down,” he says, waving his hand above his head.
Tear gas canisters from Al Amrah, near Sfax, Tunisia 23-25 April 2024 [Courtesy of Richard]
Richard joins in, he had been at Kilometre 34, names given to the informal camps based on their distance from Sfax centre. He describes a raid last month where the refugees were able to film the police burning tents and firing tear gas.
“The police came and burned the tents,” Richard explains, showing the video of the raid on his phone. “I don’t know why they did it,” he says.
But this is just one of what have become commonplace raids for those living in the fields around Sfax, shut off from the world by a police force that seeks to block access from NGOs and prying journalists.
Both Richard and Solomon subsequently told Al Jazeera that they were away from the Tunis camps at the time of the police raid.
Kidnapped
With much of the sub-Saharan African refugee community existing in an official vacuum, a trade in kidnapping has been growing since at least the end of last year.
In Tunis, huddled on a broken sofa that, like the shelters surrounding it, was subsequently swept up in the raid, three Sierra Leoneans spoke of having been held and tortured on arriving in Sfax from Algeria.
Tunisia Is Not Safe. Please We Want To Leave Before🇹🇳Election. Many Woman,Breastfeeding Mum And Kids Have To Sleep Out Until Their Parents,Guidance Able To Fix Their Plastic Houses. European Migration Policy Keep Enslaves,Kill,Rape,Exploitation In Our Own Continent.🇹🇳🇪🇺Are Killer https://t.co/S9ULWrwguupic.twitter.com/mMZCL4Sfqp
They were held prisoner by an unknown number of Francophones, their guess was Cameroonians, after being “sold” to them by the Tunisian smugglers they had already paid 600 euros ($644) to.
“They beat us with plastic pipes. One, he gets a bottle and burns it, so the plastic falls on us,” 29-year-old Hassan said.
His friend, 34-year-old Izzi from Freetown, took up the story: “They make us call our families. I phone my wife in Sierra Leone. I am supposed to be earning money for her and our three children. We all phone.
“We transfer the money. They leave us with nothing. They take our phones, everything.”
Accounts of kidnapping, torture and trafficking are rife among the sub-Saharan African refugee community. In March, the practice was called out, by a group of 27 international and national NGOs, including the regional office of Lawyers Without Borders, who said the prevalence of kidnapping was the outcome of official attitudes towards migration.
Determining how prevalent the trade is – like trying to count overall arrivals – when both victim and trafficker rely upon secrecy, is like trying to place one’s finger on liquid mercury.
“There have been escalating reports of such practices since the end of last year, primarily in Sfax, where migrants are kidnapped by other migrants, or in conjunction with Tunisian smugglers,” Romdhane Ben Amor, communications officer for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, said.
“They are then held against their will in apartments or houses.”
Ce qui se passe actuellement à Sfax est honteux. Le pire, c’est que l’État et les prétendus politiciens sont tous complices. Rappelons que la Tunisie compte plus de 12 000 réfugiés, majoritairement en Italie, où ils sont traités avec dignité. pic.twitter.com/EHA7pNKsDC
Translation: What is currently happening in Sfax is shameful. The worst part is that the state and so-called politicians are all complicit. Remember that #Tunisia has more than 12,000 refugees, mainly in Italy, where they are treated with dignity.
The situation deteriorated since authorities expelled undocumented sub-Saharan refugees to the fields outside Sfax, Ben Amor continued.
In April, journalists for French newspaper Liberation reported on a police raid on a three-storey building in a working-class district of Sfax, where sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants were ordered onto the roof by their Black kidnappers and instructed to threaten to jump should the police approach.
Vilified
Encouraged by a government that analysts typically characterise as authoritarian operating in tandem with a largely pliant media, many within Tunisia are venting their frustrations over tanking living standards, shrinking freedoms and endemic unemployment in the Black refugee and migrant community.
In Sfax, local MP Fatma Mseddi has channelled much of that anger, petitioning to have irregular arrivals deported and pushing a law intended to hobble the international NGOs she blames for supporting them.
A suggestion from a Tunisian NGO to shelter some of the refugees and migrants in a hotel has already been attacked within the press with the organisation’s national credentials questioned.
On the ground, community Facebook groups focus that anger while ignoring from their own contribution to the overall migration numbers. 17,322 Tunisian nationals made the journey to Italy without paperwork last year.
However, with no long-term solution in sight, Tunisia continues to punish refugees and migrants for their presence.
How four-month-old Freedom and the other children of the Tunis encampments may be responsible for their homelessness and destitution is unknown.
Russ Cook finishes the journey of more than 16,000km (9,940 miles) in 352 days, raising $870,000 for two separate charities.
Sore and sandblasted but triumphant, runner Russ Cook has reached the northernmost point of Africa, almost a year after he set off from its southern tip on a quest to run the length of the continent.
Dozens of supporters gathered on a rocky outcrop on Sunday beside the Mediterranean in northern Tunisia, cheering on the British charity fundraiser, who has run more than 16,000km (9,940 miles) across 16 countries in 352 days, and is believed to be the first person to complete the feat.
“I’m a little bit tired,” Cook said – likely an understatement.
In the course of his journey, the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing in southern England crossed jungle and desert, swerved conflict zones and was delayed by theft, injury and visa problems.
Cook – known on social media by his nickname, Hardest Geezer – set off on April 22, 2023 from Cape Agulhas in South Africa, the continent’s southernmost point. He hoped to complete the journey in 240 days, running the equivalent of more than a marathon every day.
Robbed in Angola
Cook and his team had money, passports and equipment stolen in a gunpoint robbery in Angola. He was temporarily halted by back pain in Nigeria. And he was almost stopped in his tracks by the lack of a visa to enter Algeria, before diplomatic intervention from the Algerian embassy in the United Kingdom managed to secure the required documents.
Cook, who has spoken about how running helped him deal with his own mental health struggles, previously ran about 3,000km (1,860 miles) from Istanbul to Worthing in 68 days.
His African run has raised more than 690,000 pounds ($870,000) for The Running Charity, which works with homeless young people, and Sandblast, a charity that helps displaced people from Western Sahara.
“It’s quite hard to put into words, 352 days on the road, long time without seeing family, my girlfriend,” Cook told Sky News as he started running on Sunday, accompanied by supporters who’d come from far and wide to run the final stretch with him.
“My body is in a lot of pain. But one more day, I’m not about to complain.”
Cook said he planned to celebrate with a party, where British band Soft Play was due to perform.
“We’re going to have strawberry daiquiris on the beach tonight,” he said. “It’s going to be unreal.”
Closure comes as Libya says ‘outlaws’ attacked the Ras Jedir border crossing.
Tunisia and Libya have closed a major border crossing at Ras Jedir due to armed clashes, according to Tunisian state TV and Libyan authorities.
Libya’s interior ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that “outlaws” had attacked the border, which sees a large flow of Libyans, often going to Tunisia for medical treatment, and trucks with goods coming in the opposite direction.
“This action carried out by these outlaw groups will not be tolerated, and legal measures and the most severe penalties will be taken against those involved,” the Tripoli-based ministry said, without giving further details.
The border post in the desert area of Ras Jedir about 170 kilometres (105 miles) from the Libyan capital Tripoli, is the main crossing point between the two North African countries.
According to local media, armed clashes broke out on Monday night between armed groups who control Ras Jedir and security forces sent by Tripoli.
On Monday, Libyan Interior Minister Imad Trabelsi had directed the ministry’s “law enforcement department” to intervene at Ras Jedir to “combat smuggling and security violations” and facilitate travel.
Unverified footage on social media showed a burning vehicle at Ras Jedir and people running, as well as the sound of gunfire.
Tunisia’s Tataouine Radio said late on Monday that Tunisia closed the crossing for the safety of citizens going to Libya.
Groups from cities in the border area have for years controlled Ras Jedir, benefitting from the lucrative parallel border trade.
Thousands of Tunisian families in the south also make a living from the trade.
Libya has been mired in insecurity since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, and is split between eastern and western factions, with rival administrations governing each area.
The families of 37 Tunisians from El Hancha near Sfax who went missing at sea have taken their protest to the capital over what they say is official silence about their missing relatives.
Relatives of the missing people, aged between 13 and 35, said they received phone calls from their family members on board the boat at around 2:30pm on January 11.
However, by 10pm, all contact had been lost.
The boat has remained lost since.
‘The whole of Hancha is miserable’
In the wake of the disappearance, extensive searches have been undertaken by Tunisia’s coast guard, supported by teams from Italy and Malta.
But search operations appear to have faltered, with the last official comment on the issue coming by way of a press release in mid-January.
Fatma Jlaiel, whose 25-year-old brother Ali is missing, was among the families who travelled to the Syndicat National des Journalistes Tunisiens in Tunis on Tuesday, trying to bypass officials and take their case directly to the media.
“No one has contacted us from the government,” Fatma Jlaiel, whose brother, 25-year-old Ali, is among the missing.
“The whole of El Hancha is miserable,” she told a translator. “All you hear in the street are questions about news or rumours. Everyone you meet is hollow-eyed.
The families took their demands to Tunis on February 6, 2024 [Fethi Belaid/AFP]
“Our mothers are sick. We’re constantly checking their blood pressure and sugar levels. They’re devastated.
“It’ll shortly be a month since the boat disappeared,” she said. “We’ve been receiving bits of information from here and there, but we’re doing most of the work ourselves. We’re undertaking the investigations the police are supposed to do,” she said.
Ali was one of the thousands of Tunisians who made their way without papers across one of the world’s most dangerous migratory routes.
Unable to secure regular employment at home, his most recent job had been as a nighttime security guard in Sfax, some 50km (30 miles) distant, which barely left him with enough money for coffee and cigarettes, his brother Mohammed said.
Rumours
In the absence of official information, a variety of theories are taking hold within a population starved of information and desperate for news of family members.
Rumours that the boat may have foundered off the island of Kerkennah, near Sfax, the country’s principal departure point for irregular migration, have been dismissed by relatives over a lack of evidence.
Other theories, like that the boat may have been diverted to Greece, have been investigated and dismissed by the El Hancha families.
Likewise, Tunisians in Italy have gone as far as appointing lawyers to work with authorities in scouring the detention centres where irregular arrivals are often held.
Poverty, police brutality and lack of opportunity have made life unmanageable for many Tunisians [File: Riadh Dridi/AP Photo]
Contacted by Al Jazeera – and stressing he had no knowledge of the case – Italian prosecutor Salvatore Vella, who deals extensively with undocumented migration, said it was unlikely the disappeared Tunisians had arrived in Italy.
“Typically, the first thing Tunisians do on arrival is contact their families,” he said. That they had not done so, he said, did not bode well.
For the El Hancha families – refusing to accept that their relatives may have been lost at sea – Libya, some 320km (200 miles) distant, remains an increasingly tantalising, prospect.
Armed gangs from western Libya have long traded in the labour of captured refugees, often intercepting convoys of undocumented Black migrants as they seek to cross into the country and bringing them to detention centres where conditions are reported to border upon the medieval.
Ali Buzriba, deputy for the Libyan coastal town of Zawiya told Italian news agency Nova that no boats from Tunisia had arrived in the region in the days after the El Hancha boat’s departure, saying that the seas had been particularly rough at that time.
In addition, Buzriba said he had contacted the head of the maritime division of Libya’s Stability Support Apparatus who also had no information on the missing boat.
Refugees attempt to cross to Italy on metal boat as they are spotted by the Tunisian coast guard, off Sfax, Tunisia, April 27, 2023 [Jihed Abidellaoui/Reuters]
Silence
Majdi Karbai, a member of parliament who is in contact with the El Hancha families, told Al Jazeera that Tunisian authorities’ silence on the issue was because of the character of Tunisian officialdom, as well as concern over the implications of any statement.
“They do not talk to the citizens, they do not talk to the press. Their concern is that this may lead to a repeat of the previous unrest at Zarzis,” he said, referring to the disturbances that followed the loss of a boat carrying 17 Tunisians from the small southern town two years ago, which eventually became a national incident.
“The families have this idea that as long as there are no bodies, their relatives are alive.”
On the phone from El Hancha, Fatma is still angry.
“We need the government’s help and that of the Ministry of Interior’s,” she said of the department with overall responsibility for the search.
“All we’ve been given is a phone number to call when we hear news from our sources. That’s what we do: call the police ourselves to say that our children might be at a certain place.”
“We need to know where our flowers are,” she said, referring to her term for the missing passengers, “We need our government to do its job and look for our precious kids. We’re devastated.”
More than 97,000 people crossed the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy in 2023, according to the UNHCR, the majority of those transiting through Tunisia from sub-Saharan Africa. Of those, at least 2,500 are thought to have died.
Tunisian President Kais Saied is preparing to seek direct financing for the government’s budget from the Central Bank of Tunisia in a move analysts say could worsen the financial difficulties the country has been experiencing since before its 2011 revolution.
Shortfalls in the budget have already resulted in the absence of state-subsidised goods like flour, rice and coffee from supermarket shelves as inflation pushes the prices of other goods beyond the reach of many households.
With gaps in last year’s budget as well as a 10.6-billion-dinar (about $3.4bn) shortfall in the current year, the state is looking to compel the Central Bank to purchase government bonds as a way to raise direct funding.
Government proposals were discussed by the parliament’s finance committee on Wednesday with what are understood to be instructions to fast-track its passage to parliament next week, where it can be voted upon during its plenary session.
“Tunisia has run out of credit,” Hamza Meddeb of the Carnegie Middle East Center said. “Its negotiations for a further loan with the International Monetary Fund [IMF] appear stalled. There are no new payments coming from the European Union for its part in helping curb the flow of irregular migrants and no sign of financial help coming from elsewhere.
Tunisians demonstrate against Saied during Tunisian Republic Day in Tunis on July 25, 2023. The sign in Arabic reads: ‘Freedom for all political prisoners’ [Hassene Dridi/AP Photo]
“Tunisia needs cash immediately. It can’t wait,” he said.
The legislation – if passed, as looks likely – would threaten the bank’s independence and, by devaluing its own currency, risks triggering a wave of inflation that its outgoing governor, Marouan Abassi, previously likened to that of Venezuela, where percentile increases in the cost of goods and services are now measured in the hundreds.
The Central Bank authorised a brief raid on its reserves in 2020 and released 2.8 billion dinars (roughly $900m) under exceptional legislation to help combat the spread of COVID-19. At the time, international bodies, including the IMF were happy to waive the implications of the move, given circumstances that were, by any measure, unprecedented.
The Central Bank has remained a respected pillar of the Tunisian state, retaining broad control over interest rates, helping mitigate the worst effects of the country’s economic decline and proving vital in maintaining the confidence of international financial backers, such as the IMF and World Bank.
“Central banks … rely upon their independence,” economist, Aram Belhaj from the University of Carthage said.
In addition to their critical role in helping control inflation by setting interest rates, they also tie the hands of politicians, Belhaj explained.
“If you have politicians with unrestricted powers, they will use the central bank to finance expenditures, possibly funding electoral objectives. Therefore, the independence of the central bank is crucial. It effectively limits political pressure,” he said.
Tunisian health workers protest during a general strike organised by labour unions demanding pay raises and more government support in Tunis on June 18, 2020, as unemployment and poverty rise [File: Hassene Dridi/AP Photo]
While the current legislation does not explicitly mark the end of the bank’s independence, it does undermine a 2016 law that separates the state from the central bank and is the subject of sporadic presidential criticism.
“The new legislation is not part of a broader approach that would allow the Central Bank to integrate [with the economy] or become more involved in growth and development issues,” Belhaj said.
“It’s just a modification that allows the government to obtain an advance of 7 billion Tunisian dinars [$2.24bn] – which is an incredibly large amount – to finance the budget deficit,” he said.
Tunisia had been in negotiations with the IMF for a further $1.9bn bailout. However, what looked to have been a finalised deal was rejected by Tunisia in April when Saied rejected the body’s “foreign diktats” intended to curb spending on subsidies and government salaries – said to be, per capita, among the highest in the world.
“This speaks as much about desperation as anything else. It tells us that the state didn’t have any other options. They needed capital, and they needed it immediately. All other options would have required negotiations and time,” Meddeb said.
“Moreover, we don’t even know which funds the government is drawing upon, and that’s critical. If it seeks to access the bank’s foreign reserves, it risks Tunisia’s devaluation of the dinar. If it accesses our domestic reserves, we’re essentially printing our own money to pay our bills.
“Neither makes Tunisia a particularly attractive option to investors or backers.”
Mediterranean Sea – In the pitch-black hours of early Thursday morning, the Humanity 1 rescue ship approached a sky-blue wooden boat in distress in the central Mediterranean Sea.
On board were at least 126 people who were suffering from hypothermia, dehydration and exhaustion from clinging to the boat for hours as it struggled to stay upright amid waves as high as two metres (six feet).
Cries for help in Arabic echoed off the waves in the pre-sunrise.
“‘We were ready for death, we were dying,’” a 30-year-old Syrian survivor told Al Jazeera as he clung to the orange rescue RIB (rigid inflatable boat) shuttling the refugees to the mothership while fighting against the high waves.
Among the survivors were one newborn and 30 minors, most of whom had embarked on the treacherous Mediterranean crossing on their own without an adult to accompany them.
“The newborn was completely covered in blankets, it was not easy to recognise that there was a baby inside.
“We also had very old people this time, some of them weren’t even able to walk by themselves due to dehydration and exhaustion,” Viviana di Bartolo, Humanity 1’s search and rescue coordinator, said.
According to the survivors, they had departed from the Libyan coast two days ago and were in distress due to rough weather conditions and high waves when they were intercepted by Humanity 1 while drifting in Maltese waters.
Many of the survivors were afraid they would be taken back to Libya [Nora Adin Fares/Al Jazeera]
They boarded the Humanity 1 barefoot, completely soaked in saltwater and obviously suffering from the cold and severe dehydration.
Many were disoriented and afraid they would be taken back to Libya.
‘Not even treated as humans’
The survivors spoke to Al Jazeera about the horrific ordeals they had suffered to make it across the Mediterranean, especially human rights violations on the Libyan side.
A young Syrian survivor in his early 20s, suffering from severe hypothermia, said he had tried to make the crossing from Tripoli to the south of Italy three times and that every time he had been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard.
“It has been hell. Libya is hell. I tried leaving for eight months now without success, over and over again, we were forced back,” he said.
Another survivor on board Humanity 1 testified to the inhumane conditions in Libyan prisons over the past year, after he had been forced back in a failed attempt to leave the North African coast in early 2023.
“You don’t understand, we were not even treated as humans”, he said.
The Humanity 1 was assigned a port of safety in Genova, north of Italy – but will request a closer port to disembark the suffering survivors sooner.
Viviana di Bartolo, Humanity 1’s search and rescue coordinator [Nora Adin Fares/Al Jazeera]
“We’ll ask for a closer port of safety because of the rough weather conditions and the fact that we have several vulnerable cases on board and people that require medical attention,” Lukas Kaldenhoff, Humanity 1’s press officer, says.
‘Boats in distress’
The desperate people who make these dangerous crossings have usually paid every last penny they have to human smugglers who put them on board rickety boats with no concern for their safety.
As the boats flounder on the high seas, often the only hope these refugees have of survival is that their plea for help is picked up by a vessel that is willing to come help.
“They [the survivors] were not only in distress because of the water conditions, but because of the boat,” di Bartolo said, exhausted after shuttling refugees between the wooden boat and the mothership for more than two hours.
“It was very poorly structured, had no safety equipment at all or people that could navigate. The people on board had no life jackets or even basic stuff such as water, food or even a toilet. This kind of boat is not meant to sail in a safe way, not at all,” she continued.
According to international law, vessels have a clear duty to help boats in distress.
That definition is determined on a case-by-case basis but, according to di Bartolo, the term “boat in distress” is applicable to nearly every departure from Tunisia and Libya that aims to cross the central Mediterranean route.
The small, overloaded boat had no safety precautions on board when the Humanity 1 intercepted it [Nora Adin Fares/Al Jazeera]
On Wednesday night, Humanity 1’s crew had received two different Mayday calls about boats in distress, and they desperately tried to clarify whether there was another boat nearby.
The first Mayday came from Frontex, the European border control, regarding a wooden boat carrying 40 people and the other from Alarm Phone, [a hotline for people in distress] regarding 90 people.
“We’re now sure that both calls were regarding the boat we rescued this morning”, Kaldenhoff said.
Humanity 1 is operated by the German NGO SOS Humanity and has been undertaking risky search-and-rescue missions across the Mediterranean Sea since 2022.
At least 2,498 refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are known to have drowned in 2023 while crossing the central Mediterranean according to the International Organization for Migration, making it the deadliest year since 2017. But the real number is believed to be far higher.
The Central Mediterranean is the deadliest known migration route in the world, with more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances recorded by the Missing Migrants Project since 2014.
Most of the departures are from Libya and Tunisia – but the refugees and migrants have often travelled far from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey or Egypt, fleeing violence, discrimination, and a loss of livelihood.
Tunis, Tunisia – A boat said to be carrying some 37 migrants and asylum seekers has gone missing off the coast of Sfax in Tunisia.
Relatives described receiving final phone calls at around 2:30pm on January 11, as the boat was setting out to sea. By around 10pm the same night, all contact with the boat and its passengers had been lost.
Other than three or four people from elsewhere in Tunisia, all of the boat’s passengers are reported to be from the small village of El Hencha in the Sfax Governorate. They range in age from about 13 to 35 years old.
Frustrated by the lack of news since the boat’s disappearance, the families of the missing migrants erected roadblocks and burned tyres around the village yesterday, only withdrawing when the government authorities assured the public that search efforts would continue.
Mohammed Jlaiel’s 25-year-old brother Ali is among the missing.
“We haven’t heard anything about him. Nothing! It’s torturous,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera by phone.
“We’re desperate for a piece of news on them,” he continued. ”They were all our neighbours and friends. The whole [of] Hencha is in pain. My mom is in a terrible state.”
Migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea on October 6, 2023, are rescued by a boat from the group Doctors Without Borders [File: Paolo Santalucia/AP Photo]
The Tunisian National Guard released a statement on Tuesday saying “all field units”, including maritime vessels and helicopters, have been mobilised to find the 37 passengers
Maltese and Italian units were also reported to have been involved in the search.
On Tuesday, the Italian news agency Agenzia Nova indicated that the ongoing search efforts were focused on the coastline between Sfax and the coastal town of Mahdia, some 80 miles (129km) north.
Nevertheless, within Tunisia, politicians and the family members of the missing passengers have voiced disquiet about how long it is taking to receive concrete news.
“Imagine not knowing anything about a brother for six days. They sent planes, boats, all sorts of things to look for them, but there’s no trace of them whatsoever,” Jlaiel said. “Tunisians, Italians, Libyans … Everyone is searching, and yet they can’t find anything. It’s so strange.”
Majdi Karbai, a member of parliament responsible for Tunisians overseas, told Al Jazeera that the missing migrants and asylum seekers were “the latest victims of Europe’s migration policies”.
He criticised the European Union’s efforts to control irregular migration along its southern border as endangering lives.
The coastal town of Zarzis, Tunisia, is an occasional departure point for boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers [File: Angus McDowall/Reuters]
Karbai added that he was in contact with family members in El Hencha. The continued absence of information about the lost boat was troubling to residents there, he explained.
He worried that the situation could trigger unrest, as happened after another vessel sank in 2022.
The southern Tunisian town of Zarzis lost 18 inhabitants in that shipwreck, leading to protests denouncing the speed of the rescue effort and the economic conditions that prompted the fatal voyage. Tunisian President Kais Saied eventually intervened to help quell ill feelings.
“This is bad,” Karbai said of the current situation in El Hencha. “This could be very bad, like Zarzis.”
Poverty and the absence of employment prospects within Tunisia often drive locals to depart for new lives in Europe. Other migrants, however, arrive on Tunisia’s coasts from elsewhere across the globe, particularly from impoverished and conflict-stricken areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
Both Tunisia and neighbouring Libya are key departure points for those looking to travel irregularly by boat to Europe. However, despite its popularity, the migration route is also one of the world’s deadliest.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2,498 migrants and asylum seekers are known to have drowned while crossing the central Mediterranean Sea in 2023. The true figure is likely far higher.
In the first 11 months of 2023, Tunisia’s National Guard intercepted almost 70,000 irregular migrants and asylum seekers. Of those, 77.5 percent had travelled to Tunisia from across Africa. The remainder came from Tunisia itself.
Migrants and asylum seekers rest in the port city of Ben Gardane, Tunisia, after being rescued from the waters of the Mediterranean by the Tunisian navy on July 7, 2021 [File: Hamadi Sehli/AP Photo]
Ali Jlaiel from El Hencha was as typical a passenger as any. His brother Mohammed described the missing 25-year-old as someone who struggled to settle down after a series of low-wage jobs, none lasting any great length of time.
“He felt cornered,” Mohammed Jlaiel said. “He had no hope of a good future.”
Ali’s last job was as an overnight security guard at the Mall of Sfax. But even with a steady wage, his budget barely covered his expenses, Mohammed explained.
“He got 600 dinars [$193] as a salary [a month]. Ten dinars [$3] would be spent on daily transportation from Hencha to Sfax. Add to that the cost of his cigarettes and coffee. Nothing would be left. It’s depressing.”
“There’s nothing in Hencha. And he’s not a special case. The boat was full of our neighbours. Even kids as young as 13 and 14,” he said. “They all didn’t find any chance here.”
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