As many migrants and refugees are arriving in Lampedusa and Sicily as they were last eleven years ago. Italian authorities often counted more than 1,000 migrants and refugees within 24 hours in August. There are no exact figures for the wave of migration across the southern Mediterranean. Because many small boats cast off, especially from Tunisian port cities, the crew of which is escorted to Italian beaches by middlemen and received there without being discovered by the Italian coast guard.
Because of the many accidents and boats that have disappeared without a trace, activists from Tunisia and Libya assume that by the beginning of August far more than the 34,000 people who were officially registered in Italy had dared to cross the Mediterranean.
The almost daily rescue operations and accidents are usually only worth a brief report to the Libyan and Tunisian media. The Libyan Coast Guard rescued a total of 330 people from rubber boats on Wednesday and brought them back to Tripoli and the port city of Saviya.
Employees of the Red Crescent organization have to recover many bodies from the beaches of western Libya.
(Photo: Mirco Keilberth)
Two mothers and their small children drowned when a small wooden boat capsized off the Tunisian island of Kerkenna this week, reports the Tunisian press agency TAP. The Tunisian coast guard has so far searched for 30 missing inmates without success.
Hundreds more people in distress are waiting on board lifeboats to go ashore. According to their own statements, the non-governmental organizations Sea-Watch and SOS Méditerranée have rescued almost 500 people in the last few weeks.
1200 people in a camp with 300 places
But the reception camps in southern Italy are overcrowded. According to the Ansa news agency, the initial reception center on the island of Lampedusa accommodates 1,200 Tunisians and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. The site, which is fenced off with barbed wire, was built to accommodate 300 people. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) describes the Mediterranean as the most dangerous refugee route in the world.
Because of the many boat accidents off the Tunisian coast, Queen and Emmanuel have decided to stay in Zarzis. For three years, the two men in their mid-thirties, who come from the Nigerian province of Biafra, have actually been waiting for a place on a smuggler’s boat. They met in the reception center of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) outside of the coastal town.
Emmanuel and Queen shy away from the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
(Photo: Mirco Keilberth)
Like her boyfriend, Queen does not want to publicly reveal her last name. “I experience racism from the Nigerian government myself here in Tunisia. Our embassy does not issue documents to people from Biafra, nor does it help them return home,” says the former hotel manager. An acquaintance had convinced her in 2018 to travel to Europe via Libya, where she would be able to pay back the travel expenses of 2,500 dollars to the human trafficker in a few months and earn a lot.
But instead of taking a boat to Italy, the odyssey across the Sahara ended up in a prison run by Libyan militias. Her boyfriend left her when she became pregnant while in detention. “When I was born in the Libyan port of Zuwara, the nurses didn’t touch me out of disgust at my dark skin. The day after I was thrown out, still bleeding,” she reports. She finally fled across the Libyan-Tunisian border at Ras Jadir with her newborn.
Because of the ongoing fighting in Tripoli and fear of being kidnapped by Libyan militias, dozens of migrants make their way every night through the no man’s land controlled by smugglers. Tunisian army patrols then take the people, most of whom come from sub-Saharan Africa, to Zarzis, 80 kilometers away. “In Tunisia, we are safe from kidnapping, but we have no legal security,” says Queen, who currently earns the equivalent of 150 euros a month as a cleaning lady.
Racism can be felt everywhere
Emmanuel met her while working on the olive grove of the head of the local aid organization Red Crescent. Red Crescent is a partner organization of the refugee agency UNHCR. They were employed for a pittance, Queen complains, but at least there was something to eat and drink. 35-year-old Emmanuel makes a living as a hairdresser for the local African community. He estimates that 15,000 migrants are currently waiting for legal status. The landlord closed his small, prosperous general store when too many dark-skinned customers came by for his liking. “It ruins the neighborhood’s reputation, he told me,” laughs Emmanuel. Most of his friends have traveled to Europe aboard fishing boats in recent months.
Thousands of people fleeing from sub-Saharan Africa end in the coastal town of Zarzis in Tunisia. They are not welcome.
(Photo: Mirco Keilberth)
“I would love to live here because those who have made it across the Mediterranean say how expensive life is in Europe,” says Queen. However, without a passport, she is not granted a work permit or residence status in Tunisia. Because the parliament deposed by President Kais Saied last summer was unable to agree on an asylum law, migrants and refugees are staying in Tunisia illegally, as they are in Libya.
“We are solely dependent on the good will of IOM, UNHCR or the police,” says Queen. Like many other migrants in Zarzis, she accuses the Tunisian staff of the United Nations and the Red Crescent aid organization of racism and withholding support services. The governor of the Zarzis region, Ezzedine Khlifi, is demanding more help from the governments in Tunis and Brussels. “The economic crisis after the corona pandemic has also led to an unprecedented emigration of young people from western Libya and southern Tunisia. But the world will only wake up when the next major shipwreck occurs.”