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On the 3rd of June 2018, the archipelago of Kerkennah off the coast of the city of Sfax in Tunisia woke up to a tragedy: the sinking of a makeshift boat transporting around 180 irregular migrants. Once again, the Mediterranean Sea has swallowed humans. At dawn, a boat left the coast of Kerkennah in direction of the Italian island of Lampedusa but a violent storm overthrew it. The Tunisian coast guards managed to save 74 migrants, 5 of them from sub-Saharan countries and recovered 71 lifeless bodies, among them were 4 pregnant women. 40 migrants remained missing. Beyond the collective disaster, there are individual stories. On the radio, personal tragedies are broadcasted: the father of one of the missing migrants recounts the ordeal of his son who wanted to rejoin his mother and sister in Italy and was refused a Visa 11 times. A survivor explains how the boat, made to carry the weight of 70 persons left with 180 ones on board. Another one, after having described the horror of the shipwreck, says he is ready to try again.
Unfortunately, this event was neither the first nor the last tragedy happening in the Mediterranean Sea which has become a graveyard for humans and hopes. Two shipwrecks have hit the headlines before: on the night of 7 to 8 September 2012, a boat which had left Sfax with more than a hundred persons onboard sank not far from the Lampedusa island. Only 56 persons managed to escape, two bodies were recovered. As for the others, there wasn’t a trace, not even hull debris. On the 8th of October 2017, a collision between an irregular migration boat and a ship of the Tunisian National Navy off the Kerkannah archipelago resulted in the death of dozens and many went missing.
We use the term “irregular” to designate this form of departure towards Europe. The terms “clandestine” or “illegal”, widely used in the North and the South of the Mediterranean Sea are adjectives elaborated to criminalize the phenomenon and are charged with moralizing connotations.
An uncontrolled old practice
To understand the irregular migration of Tunisians, one must go back to the history of Tunisian migration to Europe. This phenomenon was historically uncontrolled. Despite the agreements and conventions acted between Tunisia and the European countries since the 1960s to channel and regulate the migratory flux, the Tunisians seeking to leave prefer to do so without going through the institutional arrangements established from both sides of the Mediterranean. Those Tunisians rely on their social networks. The migrant often arrives without a visa, finds employment and is regularized afterwards.
Testimonies gathered from Tunisians settled in the city of Nice in France since 1967, confirm this attitude: going through official recruitment agencies destined for work abroad takes too much time and requires to go through intermediaries and string-pulling to be selected for departure. At the same time, it is possible to get to France in a much shorter time frame through networks of family, friends and neighbors. Once they arrive, it is easier to be regularized subsequently.
According to the Tunisian official statistics, more than 70% of the departures towards Europe between 1967 and 1972 were spontaneous and uncontrolled by the Tunisian authorities (1).
We use the term “irregular” to designate this form of departure towards Europe. The terms “clandestine” or “illegal”, widely used in the North and the South of the Mediterranean Sea are adjectives elaborated to criminalize the phenomenon and are charged with moralizing connotations.
The situation has changed with the end of labor migrations to Europe in the middle of the 1970s. A posteriori regularizations have become difficult. Irregular migration from the Tunisian coasts to Italy, commonly referred to as “harga” (border burning) started in the beginning of the 1990s, when the Schengen Agreements imposed Entry Visas on Tunisians. The economic difficulties of Tunisia, unemployment and the inequalities between regions have created conditions conducive to irregular migration (2). The apparition of the actual form of irregular migration - leading to tragedies which are often deadly - results from the European legislation, the border closure on the workforce and the setting of a “Mediterranean wall” at a time when the world is opening up to capital, goods and ideas. Consequently, the tightening up of the requirements to obtain a Visa and the strict border control have put the lives of thousands of young people in danger. The European laws, under the effect of the Schengen legal arsenal were, for a few years, dissuading. In parallel, the Tunisian laws criminalized irregular departures. They now provide for a sentence of several years of imprisonment for those who attempt to cross the border in an “illegal” manner and much stiffer sentences - which can reach 20-year confinement and heavy fines- for organizers and smugglers.
The challenge
Therefore, the monitoring is doubled: it happens both in the South and the North of the Mediterranean Sea. The foreign investments advertised with great fanfare after the agreements with the European Union were signed had been long awaited. However, those investments are yet to happen and those that had already been made have provoked “reorganizations” that led to more unemployment. So, despite the tools used for deterrence, in Tunisia and in Europe, the factors inciting Tunisians to immigrate are still proliferating. Caught between poverty, unemployment and helplessness, the youth of the South, including Tunisians, no longer see the end of the tunnel. If we add to that equation the image and the quality of life in the West, perpetuated by the media and by the migrants coming back for holidays, the young Tunisians findthemselves in a situation where the scope of their choices is reduced. To meet their objectives, the youth of the countries of the South are ready to sacrifice their own lives. The purpose of irregular migration is no longer just to find employmentbut it has become an act of “bravery” for which bands get organized and the State, synonymous of failure, corruption and anarchy, is defied.
Despite the tools used for deterrence, in Tunisia and in Europe, the factors inciting Tunisians to immigrate are proliferating. Caught between poverty, unemployment and helplessness, the youth of the South, including Tunisians, no longer see the end of the tunnel.
According to the research of the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies, irregular trips are organized by criminal networks that profit from the distress of those seeking to leave. Those networks earn around 400 billion dollars. The study underlines the apparition of international mafia groups, Italians, Albanians and others. The candidate who desires to immigratemust spend between 3000 and 8000 Dinars (between 1000 and 3000 Euros). To cross the sea, migrants are stacked in fishing boats, wooden ships or inflatable boats. Those who want to migrate irregularly come from the underprivileged Tunisian inlands and the deprived neighborhoods of the big coastal cities (3).
In 2008, for the first time, Tunisian migrants comprised the highest percentage of those arriving to Lampedusa, with 6762 irregular migrants. In 2007, their number reached 1100, making them in fourth place behind the Eritreans, the Moroccans and the Palestinians. In 2009 and 2010, the number of landings on the Italian coasts declined as much as 10000 migrants a year because of the tightening of the Italian migration policy. In the aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution, a migration spike was recorded due to many factors among which the loosened security, the chaotic situation of the county, the anxiety experienced by a youth facing an uncertain future, the absence of control over the migratory flux and the capacity of the irregular migration “market” to mobilize young people who aspire to leave in a context characterized by the weakness of the State. In the second semester of 2011, irregular migration diminished: the number of Tunisian landings have gone from 20258 arrivals to 4300. One of the main reasons of this decrease is the reactivation of coastal and port controls by the competent authorities. It is true that Tunisia is a country of immigration but it is also a transit country for asignificant number of sub-Saharans who pass through it on their way to the Northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea (4).
In Tunisia, the official authorities are well-aware that irregular migrants are victims of a structural economic crisis whose consequences can only be overcome though a stabilization of the political situation of the country and an economic growth, but they still consider irregular migration as being an illegal practice. The law passed on the 3rd of February 2004 repressing the illegal crossing of borders is very strict and against the human rights, yet it hasn’t been modified. On the ground, while waiting for the improvement of the economic situation and the signing of agreements favoring legal immigration, a tightsecurity gripon irregular migration is considered to be a priority by the government. To that end, the Tunisian Ministry of Interior strengthens its surveillance capacities with European funds and logistic aid. In the Tunisian public opinion, the tragedies linked to irregular migration give rise to anger, compassion and recollection. But, after a few days, the moralizing discourse incriminating the migrant resurfaces in the media and in the comments of politicians. It is a discourse which is paradoxically similar to the security-oriented European approach of the phenomenon.
The foreign investments advertised with great fanfare after the agreements with the European Union were signed had been long awaited. However, those investments are yet to happen and those that had already been made have provoked “reorganizations” that led to more unemployment!
Conclusion
To the North of the Mediterranean Sea, the States, obsessed with the fantasy of the “invasion”, are mobilizing to lock the border through FRONTEX (European Border and Coast Guard Agency), both on the national scale and within the European framework.In the recent years, the external borders of Europe have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of migrants and refugees wishing to get to the European Union. The countries with an external border are solely responsible for border control. FRONTEX can provide the countries confronted with a strong migratory pressure with additional technical assistance. The agency then coordinates the deployment of additional technical equipment (such as planes and ships) and of specially trained personnel. FRONTEX coordinates maritime operations (in Greece, Italy and Spain for example) but also operations on the external land borders (in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Slovakia). It is also present in many international airports all over Europe .
All of the devices, to the North and to the South of the Mediterranean Sea, are not able to stop the flux of irregular migration. Each day brings its share of boats landing on the Italian coasts and those arrested in the sea by the Tunisian authorities or by the Italian coast guards. Addressing this phenomenon requires a new approach that breaks with “security” and takes into account the dignity and freedom of migrants since emigration is a natural and legitimate movement. Opportunities for growth of development for people in their countries should be created while, at the same time, the European policies of borders fortification should be resisted. In the South, the moralizing discourses against irregular migrants are discourses that rely on the same arguments made by the Europeans. We play the role of the cop vicariously guarding the European borders. The security-based approach to the migratory flux in Europe is both hypocritical and anachronistic as, in fact, in the coming years, the European countries will need thousands or even millions of persons coming from the Maghreb and Africa to respond to the challenges of the ageing of their populations. The European economy will haveto recruit workforce for needs that will become increasingly incessant.
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Translated from Arabic by Fourate Chahal Rekaby
Published in Assafir Al-Arabi on 02/11/2018
1-Nadhem Yousfi « Des Tunisiens dans les Alpes-Maritimes : une histoire locale et nationale de la migration transméditerranéenne (1956-1984) », Paris, l’Harmattan-IRMC, 2013.
2-Riadh Ben Khalifa « L’émigration irrégulière enTunisie après le 14 janvier 2011, le problème des disparus: pouvoirs publics et société civile »in Hommes et Migrations 2013 /3 (n°1303).
3-Rihab Boukhayatia « Tout savoir sur l'immigration clandestine en Tunisie: Les profils des migrants, les causes, la mafia. à travers cette étude de l'ITES », HuffPost Tunisie, 8 novembre 2017.
4-Center of Arab Women for Training and Research CAWTAR « Jeunes et emigration enTunisie, 2017.
