in Sfax, an entire industry serving the departure of migrants to Europe

2023-11-05 07:28:04

On the beach of the small village of La Louza, the panorama which opens onto the calm and azure waters of the Mediterranean gives a glimpse of an unbroken horizon line. The landscape is only disturbed by a few fishing boats… and by a state-of-the-art armored vehicle of the National Guard, facing the sea.

“They are here every dayslips a fisherman who is having his meal on the beach. They stay there to stop the boats, but they can’t do it. There’s too much. » Located around thirty kilometers north of Sfax, La Louza, like the other towns in the region, is at the forefront of the fight between law enforcement and smugglers.

For the month of September alone, the Tunisian Interior Ministry announced that it had arrested 114 “organizers and mediators” involved in attempted illegal crossings. However, the smuggler networks remain active, and the next departures are already scheduled.

“Next week the weather is goodannounces Romuald (1) in an enthusiastic tone. There will be movement. » The young Guinean, who arrived in Tunisia more than two years ago, has been sleeping for several weeks in the olive fields of the town of El-Amra, not far from the village of La Louza. “Here is the mother house of smugglers,” he explains.

Around forty people per boat

Since the end of summer, sub-Saharan residents chased out of Sfax have been crowding into the region’s olive groves. Under the trees, hundreds of migrants are lying on the ground sheltering from the sun, when the roar of a motorcycle is heard. On the handlebars, a Tunisian plunges into the fields. “He, for example, is a smugglerexplains Romuald. You can be sure he’s going to talk with a camo, to organize a movement. »

The « camo », this is the name given to the sub-Saharan national who takes the initiative to organize a ” movement “ in other words a boat crossing. “The camo is an ordinary migrant, like me”, explains Romuald. He is responsible for bringing together the passengers and collecting their money, generally “around forty people”. To successfully complete the crossing, the camo must also find a crew, in particular a captain and a “compass maker”, responsible for holding the helm and setting the course. Roles assumed mainly by the migrants themselves.

“On the water, we don’t trust the Tunisians”

In the suburbs of Tunis, Abdoulaye (1), in his twenties, is preparing to set sail as captain of a migrant boat. “We don’t get any money for this at all,” he wants to clarify. The only motivation: to also reach European shores, like the other passengers. A former student in Tunisia, Abdoulaye “interrupted his schooling”. He also explains “never learned to drive a boat before, it will be an adventure”.

When Tunisian police stop a boat, they pierce it to make it unusable for another crossing. / Laura Boushnak/NYT-Redux-REA

According to Romuald, migrants are ready to rely on inexperienced daredevils rather than Tunisians, for fear of being caught or exposing themselves to arguments or misunderstandings once on the boat. “We recruit mainly among Africanshe confirms. If Tunisians want to go up, we refuse them. We don’t trust them on the water. »

On land, cooperation between sub-Saharans and Tunisians is nonetheless essential to organize border crossings. A few months ago, with a Tunisian driver, Romuald participated in an operation aimed at recovering migrants arriving from Algeria. “Before, we went to look for them in Kasserine (in the north-west of Tunisia, Editor’s note), he says, now we’re going to take them a little further south, then we go straight back towards Sfax. »

Tunisian smugglers are also involved in the preparation of “movements”. With passengers’ money, “camos” will buy a boat from smugglers who make metal boats. If the latter do not have one, you also have to find an engine from less careful dealers, and sometimes rent « bunkers » houses near the beach where migrants feverishly wait for departure time.

“The police are looking for Tunisians”

While some Sub-Saharans speak out about their activities, going so far as to organize certain departures on social networks (notably Facebook), Tunisian smugglers are much more discreet. “The Tunisians are at great risk,” assures Romuald.

The fishermen of La Louata, a port near El-Amra, confirm. “The police are looking for Tunisians”, assures a group of men busy around a dry dock. “If they find them, they let the Africans go, but arrest the Tunisians,” adds one of them. Opposite, dozens of boats seized by the national guards are piled up on top of each other, pierced or twisted, to be rendered unusable.

According to Romuald, it is this emphasis placed primarily on the search for Tunisian smugglers which also explains the refusal of Sub-Saharans to mix with them upon departure. “When the convoy is only made up of black people, we are more likely to leave,” he summarizes.

From three to twenty years of imprisonment

According to Tunisian law, people organizing illegal crossings of national borders risk three to twenty years of imprisonment. Heavy prison sentences are thus regularly handed down. At the end of May, a smuggler sentenced in absentia to seventy-nine years in prison was apprehended by the national guard.

Despite the illegal nature of their activities, smugglers are rarely criticized by those around them. In La Louza, fishermen and smugglers ensure “don’t bother anyone”. “It’s just a jobadds one of the sailors. They come, empty their trucks and leave. »

It must be said that this ” work “ brings in big money: places for the crossing rarely sell for less than a thousand dinars per head (around €300), and the sub-Saharans crowded into the olive groves keep the local businesses going. The money of smugglers, like that of migrants, trickles down to the rest of the region.

Generally, explains Romuald, Tunisian smugglers do not force migrants to get on the boats: “If you go to sea, it is according to your own will. » According to him, the smugglers would behave correctly, without violence against Sub-Saharan people. Unlike the “traffickers” whose activity “involves a form of coercion, exploitation of people”, explains Sophie-Anne Bisiaux, researcher on European migration policies.

However, certain networks are distinguished by a total lack of consideration for the safety of boats. Inconvenient and overloaded, the metal boats on which smugglers put their clients on are regularly victims of shipwrecks.

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Migrants “expelled to Algeria”

– L’ONG Human Rights Watch revealed a few days ago that more than 100 African migrants intercepted at sea by the Tunisian national guard had been “expelled to Algeria” September 18 and 20, and left “without food or water”. According to the organization, some migrants claimed that “National Guard agents beat them and stole phones, money and passports”.

– After a fight in which he died a Tunisian on July 3 in Sfax, hundreds of African migrants had been arrested and taken by Tunisian police to inhospitable areas on the borders with Libya to the east, and Algeria to the west. According to HRW, “more than 1,300 migrants and asylum seekers” were the subject of these « expulsions collectives ».

– Other humanitarian sources mentioned to the AFP “more than 2000 expulsions” and gave a toll of at least 27 dead in the Tunisian-Libyan desert and 73 missing from July to early August.