Investigation
Survivors reveal the true violence of the Tunisian ‘coast guard’
‘All around, people were drowning. I never saw my husband again, and most of the children died. Now I am alone and pregnant.’
On June 19, Tunisia officially established its own Search and Rescue (SAR) zone. This is something that countries are supposed to communicate to the United Nations to make rescues of people in danger at sea more efficient.
However, this announcement is actually a key piece of the puzzle for the European Union and individual member states, which have been engaged for years in an attempt to outsource their maritime borders and outsource migration control to third countries. Over the years, Brussels – and Italy in particular – have been providing means, equipment and training to the Tunisian Garde Nationale, the securitarian body in charge of maritime operations, to increase its intervention and interception capabilities.
Now there are ever-increasing complaints against the authorities in Tunis for what has been happening in that stretch of sea – including with the involvement of the resources and equipment made available from the northern shore of the Mediterranean. The Tunisians have been accused by several parties of violent practices that in some cases have resulted, directly or indirectly, in the death of migrants of sub-Saharan origin. These accusations have been recurring for more than a year, at least since Tunisia overtook Libya in the number of departures along the central Mediterranean route.
The accounts describe the intentional ramming of vessels, the theft of engines, dangerous encirclements causing high waves and instability for the precarious iron boats used for the crossing, the use of tear gas and beatings with sticks and steel clubs. The key to understanding and becoming aware of the more violent side of the Garde Nationale lies in the tales and testimonies of those who survive the interceptions. The Garde Nationale is an apparatus subordinate to the Interior Ministry, which in the past year has also built up a reputation for the mass expulsions of sub-Saharan migrants to the desert areas bordering Algeria and Libya. And there are cases in which there is external evidence for these accusations beyond the testimony of survivors.
A satellite image of the port of Sfax – Tunisia's second-largest city and an area where a high number of departures are recorded – taken on the morning of April 6 and analyzed by Placemarks, a project that analyzes satellite images to highlight ongoing environmental, social and territorial changes on the African continent, shows about 100 people lying or sitting along the quay in front of a number of Garde Nationale boats. They are kept under strict watch by the local authorities.
A few hours later, most of them found themselves deported to Libya and locked up in detention centers. “All night long, people have been lying without clothes, food and water,” Ousman, originally from Gambia, told il manifesto at the time, recounting in real time the events of that morning, from their arrival in Sfax to deportation near Nalut, Libya. Before ending the conversation because “they’ve come to take us away,” Ousman recounted that on the evening of April 5 there were four groups that departed at different times from the Sfax coast, totaling nearly 200 people.
The first three were intercepted by the Garde Nationale, while the last “got shipwrecked, and I know there were 13 dead.” The figure was partially confirmed by the authorities themselves, who a few days later issued a statement on Facebook praising their activities at sea over that April weekend: “As part of the fight against the phenomenon of irregular migration, over the weekend the floating units of the Garde Nationale managed to foil 85 illegal maritime border crossings, rescue and save 2,688 people (2,640 sub-Saharan Africans and 48 Tunisians) and recover 13 bodies.”
“I had never seen a boat hit another intentionally. I’d heard many stories about it, but this was the first time I could witness it with my own eyes. I lost my sister, my nephews and my brother's wife that night.” Ibrahim is originally from Sierra Leone and doesn’t know Ousman, but they most likely saw each other at the port of Sfax that night. Ibrahim is not his real name; he still prefers not to tell us where he is right now, even though it has been months since the incident.
He was aboard the last group of 42 people which left on the evening of April 5 and is one of the eyewitnesses to the massacre. His account, along with that of other survivors, allows us to shine a direct light on the obscurity that often surrounds these shipwrecks.
It was just after sunset. There were 21 men, 13 women and eight minors aboard an iron barge less than 25 feet long. It left the coast of El Amra, an area north of Sfax where thousands of people of sub-Saharan origin have long set up informal camps after an increase in racially motivated violence by a part of the Tunisian population and the security forces. After a few moments, several tear gas grenades fell around the boat and on it.
They were from the Tunisian security forces on the coast, who were trying to prevent the migrants from leaving. After a few brief moments of panic, trouble seemed to be behind them: the coastline grew smaller and smaller by the minute. After a stretch of sailing, the situation took a turn for the worse: two black rubber dinghies of the Tunisian Garde Nationale reached the 42 people and made a few laps around the boat, causing a strong swell.
The boat began to lose its stability. Some begged the coast guards to let them go; some stood up in the boat showing their minor children, begging not to be violently attacked. All pleas proved futile. One of the black dinghies began ramming the stern of the boat, while the man on board hit people with an iron club and attempted to steal the engines, a common practice in interception operations.
The ramming was repeated at least five times and led to the small boat breaking up. Within minutes, the boat filled with water and sank. In an instant, they all found themselves in the open sea. Most of them could not swim.
The two Garde Nationale rubber boats were now dozens of meters away. Their crews, two people on each boat, decided to throw ropes into the water and then film everything with their phones. It was a tragic sight: those who managed to reach the ropes grabbed them and climbed onto the dinghies, which were in any case too small for 42 people; those who couldn’t manage to swim the distance drowned. Later, other boats from the Tunisian authorities reached the black dinghies to provide aid to the shipwrecked: two more white dinghies arrived, two medium-length boats and two hundred-foot vessels donated by Italy in 2014.
Through archival photos and the stories of those who were on the boat that night, il manifesto was able to determine the identities of 15 dead, including seven minors. This work was also made possible thanks to the efforts of several NGOs that mobilized from the start: Refugees in Libya, Mem.Med - Memorie mediterranee and J&L Project. The death toll was higher than the Garde Nationale said in its Facebook post: discrepancies between the accounts of witnesses and authorities are a very common occurrence in these cases.
It happens very often that the security forces prevent the identification of the bodies and do not allow any information out beside the mere numbers. The victims of April 5 did not suffer the same fate: today, the 15 dead have names and faces. Ibrahim recounts the end of the tragic story: “The truth is only 18 of us survived, including a seven-year-old boy whom I helped to get on the rubber boat. […] When we arrived at the port, I asked the coast guards if we could take photos of the bodies to send them to our families and inform them about their deaths. The only answer they gave was ‘no.’”
The dead were relatives, friends, mothers, husbands and wives. The testimonies of the survivors barely conceal the pain of those who lost fundamental parts of their lives in these shipwrecks in a matter of minutes. Kominata (not her real name), also originally from Sierra Leone, is five months pregnant. To this day, she is still unable to come to terms with what happened: “I was in the sea for almost an hour before anyone helped me. When I managed to grab onto the rope, no one pulled me in to save me. All around, people were drowning. I never saw my husband again, and most of the children died. Now I am alone and pregnant.”
According to data released by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), interceptions at sea have steadily increased in recent years: from 13,466 in 2020 to 48,805 in 2022 and 80,636 in 2023. At the same time, the migrants missing at sea numbered more than 1,300 in 2023 and 341 as of June 2024. There is no evidence available to tie these numbers directly to the violent practices of the Garde Nationale, but they resonate as a wake-up call, suggesting possible violations and shipwrecks of which there is no remaining evidence or reconstruction.
After Tunisia’s formal establishment of the search and rescue zone, the NGO Alarm Phone, a project dedicated to providing support to people in distress while crossing the Mediterranean, published “Interrupted Sea,” a collection of 14 testimonies from 2021 to 2023 recounting both the shipwrecks caused by the Garde Nationale and the illegal operations carried out at sea by the Tunisian authorities, particularly in the stretch from Sfax to the town of Mahdia in the north, all the way to the Kerkennah islands.
These accounts are very similar to what happened on the night of April 5, and have been confirmed by a number of videos spread on social media, showing direct attacks with sticks and clubs and intentional encirclement, causing the iron boats to become unstable.
The role of the European Union and the various member states is obvious as a fundamental part of this scenario of violence and suffering. As of October 2023, Brussels had given Tunisia over 250 million Euros in the areas of migration and border control, including 144 million allocated for strengthening the intervention capabilities of the security forces.
Another 105 million was approved on July 16, 2023 as part the Memorandum of Understanding signed at the presidential palace in Carthage in the presence of Tunisian President Kais Saied, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. At least 48 million were to be used to equip the small North African state with new boats, radar systems and provide training to the Garde Nationale on respecting human and international rights.
Asked about the issue, a Brussels spokeswoman said that “the Commission monitors its programs through various means, including regular partner reports, external evaluations, verification missions and monitoring. The EU-funded capacity building of the Tunisian authorities, including equipment and training, is provided solely for the purposes defined in the EU-funded programs, in full compliance with international law.”
Despite these words, it seems likely that two black inflatable boats provided by Germany, several boats with radar provided by EU programs, and two hundred-foot boats donated by Italy in 2014 and refitted in subsequent years at the Vittoria shipyard in the port of Adria, as part of the Foreign Ministry's “Support to Tunisia's border control and management of migration flows” program, were all used in the operations that caused the April 5 shipwreck.
The aforementioned program is funded to the tune of 34 million Euros and also includes the future supply of seven 33-foot patrol boats. It shows just how much of a priority Tunisia is for Italy nowadays – at least when it comes to migration.
“If you're not rescuing people, at least don't destroy their lives,” Ibrahim says bitterly.
This article was produced with the support of Journalismfund Europe
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-guerra-di-tunisi-ai-barchini-dei-migranti on 2024-07-17