Despite cries of fear sent by families and human organizations, a great number of young Tunisians insist on boarding death boats seeking paradise in Europe.

“I will give it another shot. I will go back to Lampedusa. I have made up my mind to reach my destination whether dead or alive,” cried Ahmad amid his peers sitting together discussing illegal emigration.

Despite cries of fear sent by families and human organizations, a great number of young Tunisians insist on boarding death boats seeking paradise in Europe.

“I will give it another shot. I will go back to Lampedusa. I have made up my mind to reach my destination whether dead or alive,” cried Ahmad amid his peers sitting together discussing illegal emigration.

In a cafe full of the smoke from unemployed people in a slum of the Zuhour District in Tunis, Ahmad, 23 years old, spends his day playing cards and dreaming of emigrating to the promised paradise where his dreams could become true even though his first attempt failed when he was arrested by the Italian police in Lampedusa. During the long years he has spent unemployed since graduation, he has become seriously addicted to drugs.

“With three young men from my neighborhood,” explained Ahmad, “I spent three days in a house overlooking the sea, owned by one of the mafia princes organizing illegal journeys. I paid the boat owner 3,000 dinar (about $2,000).”

The journey, said Ahmad, started on board small boats, each carrying 12 people, and then they boarded a fishing boat transporting 264 young men. “The original half-day journey continued for 27 hours since we lost our way, until a Tunisian fishing boat we came across within the Italian territorial waters led us,” Ahmad added.

In Lampedusa, however, Ahmad and his companions were imprisoned for eight days then repatriated. But this has not discouraged him. He is determined to try once again even if on board worn-out boats and ending up as food for the whales and sharks. It all seems worth it since Ahmad has seen how his migrant peers have come back to spend their vacations in nice cars and with, seemingly, a bottomless pit of money.

Similar stories are narrated by people let down by the revolution, and are consequently fed up with poverty and unemployment. Seventeen-year-old Helmi said, “What do you really expect from a young man spending his life under pauperism, poverty and hunger, and in cafés and streets? I was introduced to a mafia prince, and I have taken the journey twice; the first set off from Téboulba Port, while the second from Mansoura Port in Sfax. I will repeat the journey and hope it ends in Lampedusa,” Helmi added.

The organized mafia, which organizes these trips, is a complex network impenetrable by the police due to its secret activities and relations with security parties hardly known even by their clients wishing to illegally emigrate.

Malik, a 19-year-old dropout, says social and economic conditions, which are still the same as before the revolution, accompanied by strict visa procedures make illegal emigration the only choice available for a great many young Tunisians.

Unprecedented numbers

Statistics published by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (TFESR) show that since Ben Ali’s regime was toppled about 40,000 young Tunisians have illegally emigrated towards European coasts, an unprecedented number within such a short period of time.

A study conducted by Tunisian researcher Mahdi Ben Mabrouk and Spanish researcher Laura Vilao for the International Organization for Migration on illegal emigration in Arab Maghreb, show that death boats are attracting not only uneducated people but also graduates seeking prestige and affluence.

“Emigration causes are the same whether before or after the revolution and bad economic and social conditions and the discontentment they arouse among young men who look for better jobs have oriented a great many of them towards death boats,” said Abdurrahman Hathbili of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights’ Migration Department.

All civil society components and organizations, said Hathbili, should assume their roles; however, the state holds the largest responsibility since it is the party able to provide economic and social solutions.

Sadiq Belhaj Hassan, an expert of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) International and Arab Relationship and Migration Department said the problem could be solved by combating the organized mafia exposing young people to death by controlling borders and movements across them, which should be carried out not only by the state but also by all civil society components and organizations.

Hassan suggested that UGTT sought to create a migration unionist net comprising a national observatory and a higher body for emigration under a national dialogue in order to control emigration between southern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean and ensure the rights of emigrant workers.

A study conducted by TFESR on illegal emigrations in early 2011 show that 46% of the emigrants are 15-24 years old, 45% are either unemployed or temporary workers, 24% are pupils and 2% are students. Fifty five percent of emigrants are from Tunis Governorate (the highest rate), 19% are from Sfax Governorate, and 7% are from Kasserine and Sousse governorates.