Tunisia is due to hold elections at the weekend, but some young Tunisians couldn’t care less. All they want is a chance to leave the country on a boat bound for Europe.
In Tunisia’s coast town of Zarzis, teenager Ismail Challahki is unemployed, just like most of his friends. Politics is not something that is on their minds.
Challahki was about seven years old during Tunisia’s revolution which triggered the Arab spring. A decade later, poverty in his country is on the rise and the democratic system is all but broken.
Saturday's election is for a new parliament, but it will have little say under a new constitution forced through this year by President Kais Saied that concentrated power in his hands.
My country gave me nothing
When Reuters journalists spoke to people in Zarzis, none of them said they planned to vote on Saturday.
"I will boycott the elections. I'm not interested in it. Why would I vote? My country gave me nothing," said Challahki.
In Zarzis, the townspeople still blame Tunisian authorities for the tragedy that struck in autumn, when a boat carrying 18 local migrants sank off the coast, leaving no survivors.
Hundreds more migrants are known to have died or gone missing after attempting to depart from Tunisia’s shores this year.
Despite the risks of the journey, Challahki has already tried four times to reach Italy.
When the boat hit bad weather during his first abortive attempt, "people were crying and begging for us to return to Tunisia," he told Reuters. "... The waves were very high. For at least four hours it was really bad." Eventually the boat turned back.
Giving up on the state
The misery in Zarzis has been sharpened by anger over the shipwreck, but elsewhere in Tunisia too, growing poverty has turned the population increasingly against the state.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy shrank by 8.5%. Shortages have resulted in empty supermarket shelves and the government is now seeking an international bailout.
Financial desperation has led more and more Tunisians to leave, but as most are unable to obtain a visa for Europe, they continue to resort to irregular journeys in unseaworthy boats.
By November more than 17,500 Tunisians had landed in Italy this year, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, an organization working with migrants said. That compared to a 15,000 for all of last year.
Families broken-hearted
Several months after the Zarzis drownings, President Saied has pledged an investigation, but locals say nothing has changed. They say authorities launched no rescue effort and bodies that washed ashore were buried, unidentified, in a cemetery for unnamed migrants.
"I hope nobody feels this pain. I can't even bear to see the sea. My heart is broken," said Salim Zridat. His 15-year-old son Walid remains among the shipwreck's missing after he, like others, searched through hospitals and morgues to try to identify their children.
The tragedy prompted weeks of protests and families of the dead and missing, some still staging a sit-in outside the town offices, would not vote because they did not think parliament could change anything, Zridat said.
Unidentified bodies from the shipwreck were buried among olive groves in a cemetery for migrants outside the town founded by Chamseddine Marzouk, a local saddened by anonymous burials of strangers far from home.
Marzouk said Saturday would be the first time he would not vote since the revolution.
"The youth that created the revolution did not benefit from it. They have no presence in politics. It was a youth revolution that was failed by old people," he said.
Also read: Employees wanted in Europe: A Tunisian perspective
Waiting for an opportunity
Like other Zarzis residents, Challahki joined the protests in October after the shipwreck. His own first experience of an attempted Mediterranean crossing had been completely different, he told Reuters.
When he went with his brother and cousin to start their journey it had been like a wedding, with cars in a convoy honking their horns.
Undeterred by his own subsequent brush with death, Challahki says he will try again once he has saved up enough money.
"I want to improve my life and improve things for my family. I'll go anywhere that uses hard currency," he said.
Based on a feature by Reuters