The bodies of three migrants were recovered off Tunisia's coast on Tuesday night. On the same day, the mothers of men who disappeared while attempting the Mediterranean crossing a decade earlier gathered to demand answers.
The number of lives claimed by the Mediterranean continues to mount. On Wednesday (September 7), Tunisia's National Guard said its naval teams had retrieved three more bodies off the southern coast of Gabes. The victims had been on a boat which had been carrying fifteen other migrants when it was 'intercepted' and returned to Tunisia.
Since the beginning of this year, more than 1,000 people have died or disappeared in the Central Mediterranean trying to reach Europe.
On the same day the Tunisian authorities recovered the three bodies, farther south in the town of Zarzis, the mothers of disappeared migrants gathered to demand the truth about their sons who have been missing for years, in some cases a decade.
Dozens of women, some with the faces of their sons printed on their t-shirts, waved pictures of their missing loves ones. Among the crowd were also signs saying: 'Stop the violence against migrants,' and placards and t-shirts bearing the slogan 'Ferries, not Frontex'.
For the mothers, the march through the town, a well-known departure point for people attempting to cross the Mediterranean, is about keeping the memory of their children alive, as well as about demanding answers.
Also read: Who cares about the identities of the dead?
"We are fighting to get the truth about our sons," said Fatma Kasroui, a grieving Tunisian mother who has had no news of her son since 2011.
"We have knocked at the doors of the interior ministry and the ministry of foreign affairs. We’ve organized sit-ins. But we have had no results.
"How can the Tunisian authorities tell us our sons have simply disappeared?" she told Alarm Phone, a group that alerts search and rescue authorities to migrants in distress at sea.
The gathering took place 10 years to the day after the wreck of a boat that departed from Sfax with 130 migrants on board, heading for Italy. Only 56 survived the journey. A decade later, many questions remain as to the number who disappeared.
Also read: Journeys that end in tragedy: Tunisians catalog bodies of drowned migrants
'I wish our harragas did not need to go to sea'
The EU provides economic aid to Tunisia, which is crippled by debt. In return, the north African country is meant to stop migrants departing from its shores, thus preventing arrivals to Europe.
Despite this, the number of attempted migrant crossings – and disappearances – from Tunisia continues to rise. A report by a number of civil society groups and Alarm Phone stresses that there is "nothing natural or inevitable" about these tragedies. They "are happening in reaction to the policies of visas and borders set up by the EU over recent decades," it says.
The number of disasters caused by these desperate attempts is so great that Tunisia is barely able to bury the remains of the dead. Most of the municipalities in the country refuse to take responsibility for the bodies, and the task is left to Zarzis. There are two migrant cemeteries in the town -- nearly 1,000 bodies are buried there and they are reaching capacity.
"We are tired, we are old. We wish there were no more borders and that our harragas no longer had to take to the sea to find a better life," continues Fatma Kasroui.
Also read: Red Cross: 'When a person disappears, life is frozen in many ways'
'At sea we see it all, atrocious things, indescribable things'
"I really wish these women could learn the fate of their children," said Mejid, a fisherman from Zarzis who was at Tuesday’s demonstration. For many years he has often had to stand in as a rescuer at sea.
"It’s been 20 years now that we, the fishermen, have been saving people," he told Alarm Phone. "We don't give a damn who these people are, we don’t ask for their passport, we save them. At sea we see it all, atrocious things, indescribable things."
Wearily, Mejid points out the inactivity of the Tunisian authorities. "Us, no one supports us in the rescues we do. But the Tunisian authorities pocket the money from Europe to manage the migrant problem, and particularly the situation of the people at sea."
The Tunisian fishermen regularly come into conflict with the Libyan coast guard, who are authorized by Tunisia to enter their waters to intercept the migrants’ small boats. Since a 2016 agreement with the EU, Tripoli is responsible for part of the search and rescue zone near its coast.
Which just makes things at sea more complicated, says Mejid. "It’s a real nightmare."
The EU's border agency Frontex says more than 42,500 migrants used the central Mediterranean route between January and July, up 44 percent compared with the first seven months of 2021.
This report was based on an article written for InfoMigrants in French by Charlotte Oberti.
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