They swollen bodieswrapped in seaweed and disfigured day by day drifting in the seaon the east coast lies the Sfax Forensic Institute Tunisia. There they pile up, more and more, dozens, wrapped in white cloth, in refrigerators that can no longer cope. Spring 2023 and this year’s most dramatic epilogue. new war waged in Mediterrenian central between human traffickers, European governments and now Tunisia.
immigration way From the North African country to Italy today the most growing. HE surprised With this Libya It’s happened in recent months, and it brings the number of European arrivals to almost all-time highs; According to the Italian Ministry of Interior, more than 1,000 so far this year 45,000 migrants landed. Of these, about 12,000 had sailed from the Tunisian coast by March. impressive growth compared to 1,300 entries in the same period last year.
Tunisian activist Najet Zammouri, vice-president of the Ligue Tunissienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (Tunisian Union for Human Rights, LTDH), explains this as well as the economic situation in Tunisia last moves tectonic plates international geopolitics. An explosive cocktail that pushes more and more sub-Saharan immigrants, as well as Tunisians, to take the dangerous route.
racism and laziness
On the one hand, “the current Tunisian president (Kays Said) says it changed its policy and says: Tunisia does not allow to be one immigration guards Who wants to reach Europe,” confirms Zammouri. definite Acceptance among Tunisianspossibly the real ending make more advantageous deals for the country and currently overlapping a little slack From the Tunisian authorities (border control),” he says in an interview with EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA of the Prensa Ibérica group from the Tunisian capital.
This shift in Tunisian politics was demonstrated in a speech Saied gave in February. In it, the Tunisian president asked the security forces ‘quickly end’ irregular migration and sub-Saharan populations as a source of ‘violence and crime’ and Demographic threat to Arab-Muslim identity of his country. What left a wider scar in Tunisia (although Saed later partially withdrew) is: climate of hostility who is pushing African immigrants sail there.
Thus, in the last months of last year and this 2023, the arrival of people from Italy to Italy West Africahighlights the Italian journalist Annalisa Pacini, who specializes in immigration. “What does that tell us? Their condition is getting much worse. in Tunisiait happened a racist campaign against them based on the same theories as ethnic displacementIt has been circulating in Europe for years,” he explains. “And everything else, growing authoritarianism Saied, a leader who has even stripped of parliamentary powers, “says Pacini, suggesting that the president also used these arguments to avoid the economic crisis affecting the country.
run away from the economy
A terrible economic crisis in Tunisia, where all the indicators are currently in red: a inflation two figures, a debt that exceeds 100% of GDP and 42% of unemployed youth. First of all, although the state coffers are empty, exports are weakening and tourismpreviously a major source of income for the country, never healed After the attack on the Bardo Museum (2015). This is a clue to its existence. Tunisians on the list top 10 nationalities Number of migrants disembarking in Italy.
“This fruit increasingly restrictive policies This means that families, children, even college students take risks along this route,” said activist Zammouri, arguing that softening these policies would be a step towards resolving this crisis, “the danger of instability and violence in Libya Jean Jacques Diku, representative of the Congolese community in Italy, is another reason for the increase in the Tunisia route,” agrees.
“The smugglers easiest routes“, insists on the existence of these criminal gangs, which, according to some, is also increasing in Tunisia. This raises another problem: the possibility of The Tunisian government has no capacity To stop these networks. “This eliminates the suggestion that an agreement similar to the one the European Union signed with Turkey (in 2015) would enter into force in Tunisia,” says Zammouri. Giorgia Meloni What further complicates the resolution of a phenomenon that is believed to grow in the coming months with good weather.