city:zarzis

    • Trois morts et des dizaines de migrants portés disparus en Méditerranée

      Trois migrants ont été retrouvés noyés, vendredi 10 mars [sic : 10 mai], et des dizaines d’autres sont portés disparus après le naufrage d’une embarcation dans les eaux internationales au large de la Tunisie, ont fait savoir les autorités tunisiennes à l’Agence France-Presse (AFP).

      Un bateau de pêche a pu sauver seize migrants, a affirmé le porte-parole du ministère de la défense, Mohamed Zekri, précisant que, selon les rescapés, soixante à soixante-dix Africains subsahariens se trouvaient à bord de l’embarcation. Selon le Croissant rouge local, il pourrait y avoir eu jusqu’à 90 passagers dans l’embarcation, ce qui porterait le bilan à plus de 70 disparus. « On ne connaîtra probablement jamais le nombre exact de morts », a estimé Mongi Slim, responsable du Croissant rouge à Zarzis (sud-est de la Tunisie).

      Selon le ministère de la défense, l’embarcation est partie jeudi de Zouara, ville côtière de Libye, à 120 km à l’ouest de Tripoli, et se trouvait à 60 km au large de Sfax, ville côtière du centre de la Tunisie. Les passagers tentaient de rejoindre illégalement l’Italie, d’après le porte-parole du ministère de l’intérieur tunisien, Sofiène Zaag. Les rescapés ont été ramenés au port de Zarzis par un bateau militaire qui participait aux opérations de recherche.

      Ce naufrage dans les eaux internationales au large de la Tunisie intervient alors que les navires de secours européens se sont retirés de cette zone de passage des migrants et que la plupart des bateaux humanitaires rencontrent des difficultés pour y accéder.
      La voie maritime la plus meurtrière au monde

      Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR), qui tire la sonnette d’alarme depuis plusieurs mois, a appelé à « renforcer les capacités des opérations de recherches et de secours dans toute la zone ». « Si nous n’agissons pas maintenant, il est presque certain que nous verrons de nouvelles tragédies dans les semaines et mois à venir », a souligné Vincent Cochetel, envoyé spécial du HCR pour la Méditerranée.

      Le Forum tunisien des droits économiques et sociaux, une ONG tunisienne, a de son côté condamné une « tragédie humaine » qui est « le résultat inévitable des politiques restrictives et inhumaines de l’Union européenne ».

      Depuis la mise en place, mi-2018, d’une zone de secours et de sauvetage confiée aux autorités libyennes, les garde-côtes libyens sont chargés de récupérer les migrants en détresse. Ils ont intercepté plusieurs centaines de migrants cette semaine qu’ils ont ramenés en Libye, malgré les violents combats en cours dans ce pays frontalier de la Tunisie. Les agences de l’ONU et des organisations humanitaires rappellent régulièrement leur opposition à ce que les migrants arrêtés en mer soient ramenés en Libye, où ils se retrouvent placés « en détention arbitraire » ou à la merci de milices.

      Les navires humanitaires, qui dénoncent des entraves croissantes à leur action, sont de moins en moins nombreux à parcourir la zone. Fin 2018, les ONG Médecins sans frontières (MSF) et SOS Méditerranée ont dû mettre un terme aux opérations de leur bateau, l’Aquarius. Plusieurs autres navires humanitaires occidentaux ont été bloqués à quai après des procédures administratives ou judiciaires.

      Selon le HCR, « la Méditerranée est depuis plusieurs années la voie maritime la plus meurtrière au monde pour les réfugiés et les migrants, avec un taux de mortalité qui a fortement augmenté » en 2018. Depuis début 2019, un migrant sur quatre partis de Libye meurt en mer.

      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/05/10/trois-morts-et-des-dizaines-de-migrants-portes-disparus-en-mediterranee_5460

    • Tunisie : Naufrage du bateau des migrants, nationalités des 16 rescapés

      Les seize rescapés secourus vendredi, suite à l’effondrement de leur embarcation, sont arrivés au port de #Zarzis, à bord d’un bateau militaire.

      Quatorze personnes ont déclaré être du #Bangladesh, tandis que deux autres sont de nationalité Egyptienne et Marocaine, selon une source sécuritaire.

      On rappelle que plus de 70 migrants sont morts noyés, suite au naufrage au large de #Sfax de leur embarcation partie de #Libye, en partance vers l’Italie.

      https://www.tunisienumerique.com/tunisie-naufrage-du-bateau-des-migrants-nationalites-des-16-rescap
      #Maroc #Egypte

  • Driven to suicide in Tunisia’s UNHCR refugee shelter

    Lack of adequate care and #frustration over absence of resettlement plans prompt attempted suicides, refugees say.

    Last Monday night, 16-year-old Nato* slit his wrists and was rushed to the local hospital in Medenine.

    He had decided to end his life in a refugee facility run by the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, in Medenine. After running for two years, escaping Eritrea and near-certain conscription into the country’s army, making it through Sudan, Egypt and Libya, he had reached Tunisia and despair.

    A few days later, Nato was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in #Sfax, 210km north of Medenine, where he was kept on lockdown and was frustrated that he was not able to communicate with anyone in the facility.

    Nato’s isn’t the only story of despair among refugees in Tunisia. A female refugee was taken to hospital after drinking bleach, while a 16-year-old unaccompanied young girl tried to escape over the borders to Libya, but was stopped at Ben Gardane.

    “I’m not surprised by what has happened to Nato,” a 16-year-old at the UNHCR facility told Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity.

    “They just keep us here without providing any support and after we ... witnessed killings of our friends. We feel completely abandoned. We don’t feel secure and protected,” he said.

    The 30 to 35 unaccompanied minors living in UNHCR’s reception facility in Medenine share a room, spending their days remembering past images of violence and abuse.

    “I cannot get out of my mind the picture of my friend dying after they pointed a gun at his temple. He was sitting next to me. Sometimes at night, I cannot sleep,” the 16-year-old said.
    ’They’re trying to hide us here’

    The UNHCR facility in Medenine struggles to offer essential services to a growing number of arrivals.

    According to the information given to Al Jazeera, the asylum seekers and refugees have not received medical screenings or access to psychosocial support, nor were they informed clearly of their rights in Tunisia.

    “We feel they are trying to hide us here,” said Amin*. “How can we say we are safe if UNHCR is not protecting our basic rights? If we are here left without options, we will try to cross the sea.”

    Amin, 19, has no vision of what his life will be. He would like to continue his education or learn a new language but, since his arrival, he has only promises and hopes, no plans.

    The young people here find themselves having to take care of themselves and navigate the questions of what their future will be like, at times without even being able to reach out to their families back home for comfort.

    “My parents are in Eritrea and since more than a year, I was able to speak with them only for three minutes,” said Senait*, a 15-year-old boy from Eritrea.

    Aaron*, a 16-year-old boy who has been on the road for three years and three months, has not been able to call his relatives at all since his arrival in Tunisia.

    “Last time I have contacted them was in 2016 while I was in Sudan. I miss them so much,” he said.

    Last week, many of them participated in a peaceful demonstration, demanding medical care, support from the UNHCR and resettlement to third countries.

    Refugee lives in suspension

    Nato, as well as a number of refugee minors Al Jazeera spoke to, arrived in Tunisia over the Libyan border with the help of smugglers. The same is true for hundreds of refugees escaping Libya.

    Tunisia registered more than 1,000 refugees and 350 asylum seekers, mainly from Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia.

    But the country has neither the capacity nor the means to host refugees, and because it doesn’t have a coherent asylum system, the refugees find themselves living a largely suspended life.

    Officially, refugees are not allowed to work and, therefore, there is no formal system of protection for those that do work.

    Awate*, a 24-year-old man from Eritrea, had been working for nine days in a hotel in the seaside city of Zarzis when he was arrested and brought to a police station where he was interrogated for 30 minutes.

    “They told me ’why are you going to work without passport?’,” he said, adding that he has not worked since.

    The UNHCR in Tunisia is pushing alternatives, which include enhancing refugees’ self-reliance and livelihood opportunities.

    A month ago, a group of 32 people moved out of the reception centre with an offer of a monthly payment of 350 Tunisian dinars ($116) and help to find private accommodation. Among them, nine decided to go to the capital, Tunis. The plan is confirmed for three months, with no clarity on what happens next.

    Aklilu*, a 36-year-old former child soldier from Eritrea who took up the offer, is now renting a small apartment on the main road to Djerba for 250 Tunisian dinars ($83).

    “Why should I be forced to settle in a country that’s not ready to host refugees?” he said. “They are thinking of Tunisia as the final destination but there are no conditions for it. The UNHCR is not making any effort to integrate us. We don’t get any language courses or technical training.”


    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/driven-suicide-tunisia-unhcr-refugee-shelter-190319052430125.html
    #Tunisie #HCR #UNHCR #camps_de_réfugiés #suicide #réinstallation #limbe #attente #transit #trauma #traumatisme #santé_mentale #MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés #migrations #asile #réfugiés
    ping @_kg_

  • 56,800 migrant dead and missing : ’They are human beings’

    One by one, five to a grave, the coffins are buried in the red earth of this ill-kept corner of a South African cemetery. The scrawl on the cheap wood attests to their anonymity: “Unknown B/Male.”

    These men were migrants from elsewhere in Africa with next to nothing who sought a living in the thriving underground economy of Gauteng province, a name that roughly translates to “land of gold.” Instead of fortune, many found death, their bodies unnamed and unclaimed — more than 4,300 in Gauteng between 2014 and 2017 alone.

    Some of those lives ended here at the Olifantsvlei cemetery, in silence, among tufts of grass growing over tiny placards that read: Pauper Block. There are coffins so tiny that they could belong only to children.

    As migration worldwide soars to record highs, far less visible has been its toll: The tens of thousands of people who die or simply disappear during their journeys, never to be seen again. In most cases, nobody is keeping track: Barely counted in life, these people don’t register in death , as if they never lived at all.

    An Associated Press tally has documented at least 56,800 migrants dead or missing worldwide since 2014 — almost double the number found in the world’s only official attempt to try to count them, by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. The IOM toll as of Oct. 1 was more than 28,500. The AP came up with almost 28,300 additional dead or missing migrants by compiling information from other international groups, requesting forensic records, missing persons reports and death records, and sifting through data from thousands of interviews with migrants.

    The toll is the result of migration that is up 49 percent since the turn of the century, with more than 258 million international migrants in 2017, according to the United Nations. A growing number have drowned, died in deserts or fallen prey to traffickers, leaving their families to wonder what on earth happened to them. At the same time, anonymous bodies are filling cemeteries around the world, like the one in Gauteng.

    The AP’s tally is still low. More bodies of migrants lie undiscovered in desert sands or at the bottom of the sea. And families don’t always report loved ones as missing because they migrated illegally, or because they left home without saying exactly where they were headed.

    The official U.N. toll focuses mostly on Europe, but even there cases fall through the cracks. The political tide is turning against migrants in Europe just as in the United States, where the government is cracking down heavily on caravans of Central Americans trying to get in . One result is that money is drying up for projects to track migration and its costs.

    For example, when more than 800 people died in an April 2015 shipwreck off the coast of Italy, Europe’s deadliest migrant sea disaster, Italian investigators pledged to identify them and find their families. More than three years later, under a new populist government, funding for this work is being cut off.

    Beyond Europe, information is even more scarce. Little is known about the toll in South America, where the Venezuelan migration is among the world’s biggest today, and in Asia, the top region for numbers of migrants.

    The result is that governments vastly underestimate the toll of migration, a major political and social issue in most of the world today.

    “No matter where you stand on the whole migration management debate....these are still human beings on the move,” said Bram Frouws, the head of the Mixed Migration Centre , based in Geneva, which has done surveys of more than 20,000 migrants in its 4Mi project since 2014. “Whether it’s refugees or people moving for jobs, they are human beings.”

    They leave behind families caught between hope and mourning, like that of Safi al-Bahri. Her son, Majdi Barhoumi, left their hometown of Ras Jebel, Tunisia, on May 7, 2011, headed for Europe in a small boat with a dozen other migrants. The boat sank and Barhoumi hasn’t been heard from since. In a sign of faith that he is still alive, his parents built an animal pen with a brood of hens, a few cows and a dog to stand watch until he returns.

    “I just wait for him. I always imagine him behind me, at home, in the market, everywhere,” said al-Bahari. “When I hear a voice at night, I think he’s come back. When I hear the sound of a motorcycle, I think my son is back.”

    ———————————————————————

    EUROPE: BOATS THAT NEVER ARRIVE

    Of the world’s migration crises, Europe’s has been the most cruelly visible. Images of the lifeless body of a Kurdish toddler on a beach, frozen tent camps in Eastern Europe, and a nearly numbing succession of deadly shipwrecks have been transmitted around the world, adding to the furor over migration.

    In the Mediterranean, scores of tankers, cargo boats, cruise ships and military vessels tower over tiny, crowded rafts powered by an outboard motor for a one-way trip. Even larger boats carrying hundreds of migrants may go down when soft breezes turn into battering winds and thrashing waves further from shore.

    Two shipwrecks and the deaths of at least 368 people off the coast of Italy in October 2013 prompted the IOM’s research into migrant deaths. The organization has focused on deaths in the Mediterranean, although its researchers plead for more data from elsewhere in the world. This year alone, the IOM has found more than 1,700 deaths in the waters that divide Africa and Europe.

    Like the lost Tunisians of Ras Jebel, most of them set off to look for work. Barhoumi, his friends, cousins and other would-be migrants camped in the seaside brush the night before their departure, listening to the crash of the waves that ultimately would sink their raft.

    Khalid Arfaoui had planned to be among them. When the group knocked at his door, it wasn’t fear that held him back, but a lack of cash. Everyone needed to chip in to pay for the boat, gas and supplies, and he was short about $100. So he sat inside and watched as they left for the beachside campsite where even today locals spend the night before embarking to Europe.

    Propelled by a feeble outboard motor and overburdened with its passengers, the rubber raft flipped, possibly after grazing rocks below the surface on an uninhabited island just offshore. Two bodies were retrieved. The lone survivor was found clinging to debris eight hours later.

    The Tunisian government has never tallied its missing, and the group never made it close enough to Europe to catch the attention of authorities there. So these migrants never have been counted among the dead and missing.

    “If I had gone with them, I’d be lost like the others,” Arfaoui said recently, standing on the rocky shoreline with a group of friends, all of whom vaguely planned to leave for Europe. “If I get the chance, I’ll do it. Even if I fear the sea and I know I might die, I’ll do it.”

    With him that day was 30-year-old Mounir Aguida, who had already made the trip once, drifting for 19 hours after the boat engine cut out. In late August this year, he crammed into another raft with seven friends, feeling the waves slam the flimsy bow. At the last minute he and another young man jumped out.

    “It didn’t feel right,” Aguida said.

    There has been no word from the other six — yet another group of Ras Jebel’s youth lost to the sea. With no shipwreck reported, no survivors to rescue and no bodies to identify, the six young men are not counted in any toll.

    In addition to watching its own youth flee, Tunisia and to a lesser degree neighboring Algeria are transit points for other Africans north bound for Europe. Tunisia has its own cemetery for unidentified migrants, as do Greece, Italy and Turkey. The one at Tunisia’s southern coast is tended by an unemployed sailor named Chamseddin Marzouk.

    Of around 400 bodies interred in the coastal graveyard since it opened in 2005, only one has ever been identified. As for the others who lie beneath piles of dirt, Marzouk couldn’t imagine how their families would ever learn their fate.

    “Their families may think that the person is still alive, or that he’ll return one day to visit,” Marzouk said. “They don’t know that those they await are buried here, in Zarzis, Tunisia.”

    ——————

    AFRICA: VANISHING WITHOUT A TRACE

    Despite talk of the ’waves’ of African migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean, as many migrate within Africa — 16 million — as leave for Europe. In all, since 2014, at least 18,400 African migrants have died traveling within Africa, according to the figures compiled from AP and IOM records. That includes more than 4,300 unidentified bodies in a single South African province, and 8,700 whose traveling companions reported their disappearance en route out of the Horn of Africa in interviews with 4Mi.

    When people vanish while migrating in Africa, it is often without a trace. The IOM says the Sahara Desert may well have killed more migrants than the Mediterranean. But no one will ever know for sure in a region where borders are little more than lines drawn on maps and no government is searching an expanse as large as the continental United States. The harsh sun and swirling desert sands quickly decompose and bury bodies of migrants, so that even when they turn up, they are usually impossible to identify .

    With a prosperous economy and stable government, South Africa draws more migrants than any other country in Africa. The government is a meticulous collector of fingerprints — nearly every legal resident and citizen has a file somewhere — so bodies without any records are assumed to have been living and working in the country illegally. The corpses are fingerprinted when possible, but there is no regular DNA collection.

    South Africa also has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime and police are more focused on solving domestic cases than identifying migrants.

    “There’s logic to that, as sad as it is....You want to find the killer if you’re a policeman, because the killer could kill more people,” said Jeanine Vellema, the chief specialist of the province’s eight mortuaries. Migrant identification, meanwhile, is largely an issue for foreign families — and poor ones at that.

    Vellema has tried to patch into the police missing persons system, to build a system of electronic mortuary records and to establish a protocol where a DNA sample is taken from every set of remains that arrive at the morgue. She sighs: “Resources.” It’s a word that comes up 10 times in a half-hour conversation.

    So the bodies end up at Olifantsvlei or a cemetery like it, in unnamed graves. On a recent visit by AP, a series of open rectangles awaited the bodies of the unidentified and unclaimed. They did not wait long: a pickup truck drove up, piled with about 10 coffins, five per grave. There were at least 180 grave markers for the anonymous dead, with multiple bodies in each grave.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is working with Vellema, has started a pilot project with one Gauteng morgue to take detailed photos, fingerprints, dental information and DNA samples of unidentified bodies. That information goes to a database where, in theory, the bodies can be traced.

    “Every person has a right to their dignity. And to their identity,” said Stephen Fonseca, the ICRC regional forensic manager.

    ————————————

    THE UNITED STATES: “THAT’S HOW MY BROTHER USED TO SLEEP”

    More than 6,000 miles (9,000 kilometers) away, in the deserts that straddle the U.S.-Mexico border, lie the bodies of migrants who perished trying to cross land as unforgiving as the waters of the Mediterranean. Many fled the violence and poverty of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Mexico. Some are found months or years later as mere skeletons. Others make a last, desperate phone call and are never heard from again.

    In 2010 the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the local morgue in Pima County, Ariz., began to organize efforts to put names to the anonymous bodies found on both sides of the border. The “Border Project” has since identified more than 183 people — a fraction of the total.

    At least 3,861 migrants are dead and missing on the route from Mexico to the United States since 2014, according to the combined AP and IOM total. The tally includes missing person reports from the Colibri Center for Human Rights on the U.S. side as well as the Argentine group’s data from the Mexican side. The painstaking work of identification can take years, hampered by a lack of resources, official records and coordination between countries — and even between states.

    For many families of the missing, it is their only hope, but for the families of Juan Lorenzo Luna and Armando Reyes, that hope is fading.

    Luna, 27, and Reyes, 22, were brothers-in-law who left their small northern Mexico town of Gomez Palacio in August 2016. They had tried to cross to the U.S. four months earlier, but surrendered to border patrol agents in exhaustion and were deported.

    They knew they were risking their lives — Reyes’ father died migrating in 1995, and an uncle went missing in 2004. But Luna, a quiet family man, wanted to make enough money to buy a pickup truck and then return to his wife and two children. Reyes wanted a job where he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty and could give his newborn daughter a better life.

    Of the five who left Gomez Palacio together, two men made it to safety, and one man turned back. The only information he gave was that the brothers-in-law had stopped walking and planned to turn themselves in again. That is the last that is known of them.

    Officials told their families that they had scoured prisons and detention centers, but there was no sign of the missing men. Cesaria Orona even consulted a fortune teller about her missing son, Armando, and was told he had died in the desert.

    One weekend in June 2017, volunteers found eight bodies next to a military area of the Arizona desert and posted the images online in the hopes of finding family. Maria Elena Luna came across a Facebook photo of a decaying body found in an arid landscape dotted with cactus and shrubs, lying face-up with one leg bent outward. There was something horribly familiar about the pose.

    “That’s how my brother used to sleep,” she whispered.

    Along with the bodies, the volunteers found a credential of a boy from Guatemala, a photo and a piece of paper with a number written on it. The photo was of Juan Lorenzo Luna, and the number on the paper was for cousins of the family. But investigators warned that a wallet or credential could have been stolen, as migrants are frequently robbed.

    “We all cried,” Luna recalled. “But I said, we cannot be sure until we have the DNA test. Let’s wait.”

    Luna and Orona gave DNA samples to the Mexican government and the Argentine group. In November 2017, Orona received a letter from the Mexican government saying that there was the possibility of a match for Armando with some bone remains found in Nuevo Leon, a state that borders Texas. But the test was negative.

    The women are still waiting for results from the Argentine pathologists. Until then, their relatives remain among the uncounted.

    Orona holds out hope that the men may be locked up, or held by “bad people.” Every time Luna hears about clandestine graves or unidentified bodies in the news, the anguish is sharp.

    “Suddenly all the memories come back,” she said. “I do not want to think.”

    ————————

    SOUTH AMERICA: “NO ONE WANTS TO ADMIT THIS IS A REALITY”

    The toll of the dead and the missing has been all but ignored in one of the largest population movements in the world today — that of nearly 2 million Venezuelans fleeing from their country’s collapse. These migrants have hopped buses across the borders, boarded flimsy boats in the Caribbean, and — when all else failed — walked for days along scorching highways and freezing mountain trails. Vulnerable to violence from drug cartels, hunger and illness that lingers even after reaching their destination, they have disappeared or died by the hundreds.

    “They can’t withstand a trip that hard, because the journey is very long,” said Carlos Valdes, director of neighboring Colombia’s national forensic institute. “And many times, they only eat once a day. They don’t eat. And they die.” Valdes said authorities don’t always recover the bodies of those who die, as some migrants who have entered the country illegally are afraid to seek help.

    Valdes believes hypothermia has killed some as they trek through the mountain tundra region, but he had no idea how many. One migrant told the AP he saw a family burying someone wrapped in a white blanket with red flowers along the frigid journey.

    Marta Duque, 55, has had a front seat to the Venezuela migration crisis from her home in Pamplona, Colombia. She opens her doors nightly to provide shelter for families with young children. Pamplona is one of the last cities migrants reach before venturing up a frigid mountain paramo, one of the most dangerous parts of the trip for migrants traveling by foot. Temperatures dip well below freezing.

    She said inaction from authorities has forced citizens like her to step in.

    “Everyone just seems to pass the ball,” she said. “No one wants to admit this is a reality.”

    Those deaths are uncounted, as are dozens in the sea. Also uncounted are those reported missing in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. In all at least 3,410 Venezuelans have been reported missing or dead in a migration within Latin America whose dangers have gone relatively unnoticed; many of the dead perished from illnesses on the rise in Venezuela that easily would have found treatment in better times.

    Among the missing is Randy Javier Gutierrez, who was walking through Colombia with a cousin and his aunt in hopes of reaching Peru to reunite with his mother.

    Gutierrez’s mother, Mariela Gamboa, said that a driver offered a ride to the two women, but refused to take her son. The women agreed to wait for him at the bus station in Cali, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) ahead, but he never arrived. Messages sent to his phone since that day four months ago have gone unread.

    “I’m very worried,” his mother said. “I don’t even know what to do.”

    ———————————

    ASIA: A VAST UNKNOWN

    The region with the largest overall migration, Asia, also has the least information on the fate of those who disappear after leaving their homelands. Governments are unwilling or unable to account for citizens who leave for elsewhere in the region or in the Mideast, two of the most common destinations, although there’s a growing push to do so.

    Asians make up 40 percent of the world’s migrants, and more than half of them never leave the region. The Associated Press was able to document more than 8,200 migrants who disappeared or died after leaving home in Asia and the Mideast, including thousands in the Philippines and Indonesia.

    Thirteen of the top 20 migration pathways from Asia take place within the region. These include Indian workers heading to the United Arab Emirates, Bangladeshis heading to India, Rohingya Muslims escaping persecution in Myanmar, and Afghans crossing the nearest border to escape war. But with large-scale smuggling and trafficking of labor, and violent displacements, the low numbers of dead and missing indicate not safe travel but rather a vast unknown.

    Almass was just 14 when his widowed mother reluctantly sent him and his 11-year-old brother from their home in Khost, Afghanistan, into that unknown. The payment for their trip was supposed to get them away from the Taliban and all the way to Germany via a chain of smugglers. The pair crammed first into a pickup with around 40 people, walked for a few days at the border, crammed into a car, waited a bit in Tehran, and walked a few more days.

    His brother Murtaza was exhausted by the time they reached the Iran-Turkey border. But the smuggler said it wasn’t the time to rest — there were at least two border posts nearby and the risk that children far younger travelling with them would make noise.

    Almass was carrying a baby in his arms and holding his brother’s hand when they heard the shout of Iranian guards. Bullets whistled past as he tumbled head over heels into a ravine and lost consciousness.

    Alone all that day and the next, Almass stumbled upon three other boys in the ravine who had also become separated from the group, then another four. No one had seen his brother. And although the younger boy had his ID, it had been up to Almass to memorize the crucial contact information for the smuggler.

    When Almass eventually called home, from Turkey, he couldn’t bear to tell his mother what had happened. He said Murtaza couldn’t come to the phone but sent his love.

    That was in early 2014. Almass, who is now 18, hasn’t spoken to his family since.

    Almass said he searched for his brother among the 2,773 children reported to the Red Cross as missing en route to Europe. He also looked for himself among the 2,097 adults reported missing by children. They weren’t on the list.

    With one of the world’s longest-running exoduses, Afghans face particular dangers in bordering countries that are neither safe nor welcoming. Over a period of 10 months from June 2017 to April 2018, 4Mi carried out a total of 962 interviews with Afghan migrants and refugees in their native languages around the world, systematically asking a series of questions about the specific dangers they had faced and what they had witnessed.

    A total of 247 migrant deaths were witnessed by the interviewed migrants, who reported seeing people killed in violence from security forces or starving to death. The effort is the first time any organization has successfully captured the perils facing Afghans in transit to destinations in Asia and Europe.

    Almass made it from Asia to Europe and speaks halting French now to the woman who has given him a home in a drafty 400-year-old farmhouse in France’s Limousin region. But his family is lost to him. Their phone number in Afghanistan no longer works, their village is overrun with Taliban, and he has no idea how to find them — or the child whose hand slipped from his grasp four years ago.

    “I don’t know now where they are,” he said, his face anguished, as he sat on a sun-dappled bench. “They also don’t know where I am.”

    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/global-lost-56800-migrants-dead-missing-years-58890913
    #décès #morts #migrations #réfugiés #asile #statistiques #chiffres #monde #Europe #Asie #Amérique_latine #Afrique #USA #Etats-Unis #2014 #2015 #2016 #2017 #2018
    ping @reka @simplicissimus

  • Tunisie : Zarzis se mobilise contre un bateau qui veut empêcher le sauvetage des migrants | Middle East Eye
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/reportages/tunisie-zarzis-se-mobilise-contre-un-bateau-qui-veut-emp-cher-le-sauv

    ZARZIS, Tunisie - Des pêcheurs se sont rassemblés dimanche dans le port de Zarzis dans le sud-est de la Tunisie pour « dire non » à un éventuel accostage d’un bateau affrété par des militants d’extrême droite pour lutter contre l’immigration clandestine vers l’Europe.

    « Nous sommes en train de suivre ses mouvements sur internet et à 80 % il se dirige vers Zarzis », ville proche de la frontière libyenne, a dit à l’AFP le président de l’Association des marins pêcheurs, Chamseddine Bourassine.

    S’il s’approche du port, « nous allons fermer le canal qui sert au ravitaillement. C’est la moindre des choses vu ce qui se passe en Méditerranée, la mort de musulmans et d’Africains » en mer, a-t-il ajouté.

    • En Tunisie, un volontaire du Croissant-Rouge se bat pour enterrer dignement les migrants échoués à Zarzis

      Sur le littoral frontalier de la Libye, #Chemseddine_Marzoug, ancien pêcheur, offre une sépulture de sable aux noyés de la Méditerranée.

      http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2017/06/09/en-tunisie-un-volontaire-du-croissant-rouge-se-bat-pour-enterrer-dignement-l

    • Vidéo : le combat d’un homme, en Tunisie, pour enterrer dignement les migrants morts en mer

      #Chamseddine_Marzoug, un pêcheur de la région de Zarzis, dans le sud-est de la Tunisie, passe ses journées à s’occuper du « cimetière des inconnus ». C’est là que ce Tunisien d’une cinquantaine d’années enterre les migrants dont les corps ont été rejetés par la mer. InfoMigrants est allé à sa rencontre.

      http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/13071/video-le-combat-d-un-homme-en-tunisie-pour-enterrer-dignement-les-migr
      ping @_kg_

    • L’homme qui donne une sépulture aux migrants

      À Zarzis en Tunisie, non loin de la Libye, #Chamseddine_Marzoug s’est reconverti en croque-mort.our enterrer dignement, dans son Cimetière des inconnus, les migrants dont la traversée s’est achevée sur les plages de cette station balnéaire.


      http://www.regards.fr/monde/article/l-homme-qui-donne-une-sepulture-aux-migrants

    • Sur les plages de Djerba, la Méditerranée rejette les corps des migrants

      Au sud-est de la Tunisie, les naufrages d’embarcations en provenance de Libye rejettent sur les plages les corps de ceux qui voulaient gagner l’Europe.

      Sur la plage d’Aghir de l’île de Djerba, dans le sud de la Tunisie, il y a plus de cadavres que de baigneurs, en ce début de mois. Lundi 1er juillet, un canot a coulé au large. Une embarcation partie à l’aube de la ville libyenne de Zouara, à 120 kilomètres à l’ouest de Tripoli, avec 86 personnes à bord. Trois ont été repêchées vivantes. La mer rend les autres, une à une.

      « Moi, j’en peux plus. Là, c’est trop. » Chemseddine Marzoug, le pêcheur qui, depuis des années, offre une dernière demeure aux corps que la mer rejette, dit son ras-le-bol. « J’ai enterré près de 400 cadavres et, là, des dizaines vont encore arriver dans les jours qui viennent. Ce n’est plus possible, c’est inhumain et nous ne pouvons pas gérer ça tout seuls », se désespère le gardien du cimetière des migrants de Zarzis, ville située au sud-est de la Tunisie, près de la frontière avec la Libye.

      La mer est calme en ce début d’été. Cela pourrait être un beau début de saison pour les habitués, qui ont dressé tentes et parasols. Mais, dans l’air, il y a comme une tension. Une embarcation arrive par la mer, une ambulance de la protection civile par la terre.

      « Va faire un tour avec ton enfant et reviens plus tard », demande sèchement un garde national à une rare baigneuse. Sur le bateau, plusieurs gardes maritimes portent des masques.
      « Trouver un camion frigorifique »

      Dans le canot qu’ils traînent, une forme humaine se devine sous une bâche verte. Rapidement, elle est glissée dans un sac mortuaire et déposée sur le sable. Premier d’un alignement macabre de sept corps repêchés dans la matinée de samedi, auxquels ont été ajoutés sept autres, dans l’après-midi.

      Et c’est sans compter tous ceux qui ont dérivé vers la plage de Ben Gardane, plus au sud. « Cette fois, c’est difficile à gérer, car le naufrage n’a fait presque aucun survivant. Nous avons donc des arrivées massives de cadavres », raconte Mongi Slim, président du comité régional du Croissant-Rouge à Zarzis et Médenine, pourtant rompu à ces drames.

      Ce docteur en pharmacie, qui aide la protection civile, connaît par cœur la procédure. D’abord, il faut déposer les corps à la morgue puis les transporter à Gabès, à plus de deux heures de route, où se trouve le médecin légiste le plus proche. Là, des prélèvements ADN sont faits. C’est le seul moyen d’identifier les corps.

      « L’urgence, aujourd’hui, c’est de trouver un camion frigorifique pour transporter les quinze corps repêchés. D’habitude, nous n’en avons pas autant, donc c’est plus fluide », raconte-t-il, en habitué des morts de la mer. Entre les appels du gouverneur et ceux de la protection civile, son téléphone sonne sans arrêt. C’est à Chemseddine Marzoug et à lui que l’on s’adresse à chaque naufrage.

      Mais en ce début d’été, le pêcheur est en colère. Touché par le drame qui vient d’avoir lieu et pleinement conscient que la fin des patrouilles des bateaux des ONG signifie une recrudescence des cadavres sur ses plages.

      Cette fois, si les survivants à la dérive n’avaient pas été secourus par des pêcheurs, après quarante heures dans l’eau, personne n’aurait été au courant du naufrage. « Nous avons pu avoir les informations grâce aux survivants. Les deux Maliens qui ont pu parler nous ont expliqué qu’il y avait au moins une famille et une femme enceinte », précise Lorena Lando, chef de mission de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM). Le cadavre d’une femme, enceinte de huit mois, a bien été repêché samedi, ainsi que celui d’un bébé.
      « Je ne veux plus partir en Europe »

      Une fois passés par Gabès, ils seront, comme les autres, enterrés par Mongi Slim, dans le nouveau cimetière de Zarzis, ouvert notamment grâce à une campagne de dons. « Sur les pierres tombales, nous nous limitons à un numéro et à la date de la mort, car nous n’avons pas de papiers, et aucun moyen de contacter leur famille », regrette-t-il.

      Dans le centre d’urgence de Zarzis, Ousmane et Mamadou Kamara, 20 et 16 ans, sont encore sous le choc. Avec un troisième homme encore en soins intensifs, ils sont les seuls survivants. Le quatrième homme repêché, après deux jours accroché au canot, est décédé à son arrivée à l’hôpital ; mort d’être resté trop longtemps dans l’eau froide, sans boire ni manger.

      Ousmane, l’aîné des deux frères maliens, s’accroche à son histoire. C’est tout ce qu’il lui reste. « On est arrivés en Libye en 2018, après avoir traversé le désert par le Niger. Là, on a travaillé pour financer la traversée. On voulait partir en Europe pour y être footballeurs. Au pays, on jouait, mais on n’arrivait pas à financer notre entraînement », explique-t-il.

      Chacun a versé 3 000 dinars libyens (1 915 euros) pour la traversée. « Quand le bateau a commencé à couler, il y a eu un mouvement de panique. Nous nous sommes accrochés aux planches du bateau avec mon frère. On est restés dans l’eau comme ça, pendant plus de deux jours », dit Ousmane. Son cadet a le nez brûlé par le soleil et peine à rassembler ses pensées. Son regard est perdu quelque part au loin, entre les dizaines d’hommes qui se sont tus un à un autour de lui, et cette mort qu’il a sentie flotter si près, si insistante. « Je ne veux plus partir en Europe », est-il juste capable de préciser aujourd’hui.
      1 100 migrants répartis dans six centres

      Au centre d’urgence, ils ne sont pas les seuls. Des rescapés du naufrage du mois de mai, où 16 personnes ont survécu sur 65, sont encore là, dans l’attente.

      Hsaia Shisir, un Bangladais de 17 ans, travaille un peu au noir avant de décider de ce qu’il va faire. Son long périple pour gagner l’Europe lui a coûté 9 000 dollars (quelque 8 000 euros) d’emprunt, pour faire l’aller simple Dacca-Dubaï, puis Dubaï-Benghazi, et en voiture jusqu’à Zouara, où il a pris le bateau. « Je ne veux pas retourner en Libye, c’est le règne des milices là-bas. Je ne peux pas non plus rentrer chez moi, j’ai trop de dettes. Mon seul espoir, c’est l’Europe », assure-t-il.

      En plus de ces personnes en transit, qui attendent une occasion de départ, la Tunisie doit gérer les réfugiés qui arrivent par voie terrestre, du côté de la frontière libyenne. Près de 800 ces six derniers mois, selon l’OIM.

      « Aujourd’hui, nous avons un vrai souci à la frontière libyenne vu l’instabilité sur place. Du coup, c’est difficile de faire l’équilibre entre humanitaire et sécurité, surtout que nous connaissons peu les nouvelles nationalités qui arrivent par voie terrestre. Nous avons eu des cas d’Ethiopiens qui se faisaient passer pour des Erythréens. Nous n’avons aucune traçabilité sur les personnes qui arrivent », regrette Habib Chaouat, gouverneur de Médenine.

      Pour l’instant, 1 100 migrants attendent, répartis dans six centres. Et désormais, les Erythréens qui, il y a quelque temps, encore repartaient vers l’Europe, demandent l’asile ici. Une petite centaine est logée dans un centre de Médenine piloté par le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés, avant d’obtenir leur statut.

      La Tunisie, qui a refusé de devenir une plate-forme d’accueil pour les candidats à l’exil en Europe, doit se coordonner avec l’OIM pour les bateaux qui dérivent et sont refusés dans les ports européens. Le dernier en date, amené là par le remorqueur égyptien Maridive 601, après avoir erré plus de deux semaines en juin, a laissé soixante-quinze passagers. Seuls seize ont accepté le retour volontaire dans leur pays, avec l’assistance de l’OIM.

      Dans une déclaration faite à Zarzis, mercredi 3 juillet, le chef du gouvernement, Youssef Chahed, demandait de l’aide à la communauté internationale, rappelant que « la question des réfugiés et des migrants ne relève pas de la responsabilité de la République tunisienne (…). Tous les pays doivent en assumer la responsabilité. » Une phrase que d’autres, déjà, ont prononcée avant lui, dans d’autres pays. Mais sans que la situation ne bouge vraiment.

      https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/07/08/tunisie-dans-le-cimetiere-de-zarzis-les-tombes-anonymes-des-migrants-naufrag

    • Friedhof der ertrunkenen Migranten

      In der tunesischen Hafenstadt Zarzis finden Fischer immer wieder Leichen ertrunkener Migranten. Chamseddine Marzoug, ein ehemaliger Fischer, begräbt sie. Es ging ihm gegen den Strich, dass niemand bereit war, den Toten der Migration wenigstens eine letzte Ruhestätte zu geben.

      Der Wind pfeift vom Meer her über die sandige Landschaft am Stadtrand von Zarzis. Ein Schild steht dort: „Friedhof der Unbekannten“ ist darauf zu lesen, in vier Sprachen.Chamseddine Marzoug geht von einem Grab zu nächsten:

      „Das ist ein Junge, den wir im Wasser gefunden haben, und eine Frau. Ich hab mir gedacht, dass das vielleicht die Mutter ist. Ich habe sie Kopf an Kopf begraben. Laut Obduktionsbericht war er fünf Jahre alt.“

      Marzoug geht weiter, er weiß ziemlich genau, wen er wo begraben hat auf diesem Behelfsfriedhof. Er nagelt einfache Schilder zusammen, mit Nummern drauf und stellt sie zu jedem Leichnam.

      „Die Nummern sind die, die auf den Leichensäcken stehen,“ sagt Marzoug. Immer wenn Tote angeschwemmt oder aus Fischernetzen gezogen wurden, sorgt die Hilfsorganisation Roter Halbmond für solche Leichensäcke. Und für den Transport ins Krankenhaus von Zarzis. Mongi Slim arbeitet seit 25 Jahren beim Roten Halbmond:

      „Wir erleben es seit Jahren, dass die Toten hier angeschwemmt werden. Aber jetzt sind es besonders viele. Mittlerweile haben wir sogar Leichensäcke für Babies hergebracht. Es ist sehr verletzend.“
      Auf den offiziellen Friedhof dürfen die toten Migranten nicht

      Anfang Juli sank ein Boot vor der tunesischen Küste. 82 Menschen ertranken, drei überlebten, weil sie sich tagelang an einer Holzplanke festklammerten. Früher kümmerte sich niemand um die unbekannten Toten. Aber Chamseddine Marzoug ging es gegen den Strich, dass niemand bereit war, den Toten der Migration wenigstens eine letzte Ruhestätte zu geben. Auf dem offiziellen Friedhof der Stadt dürfen die ertrunkenen Migranten nicht begraben werden. Dort sollen nur Angehörige der Familien aus Zarzis hin, hieß es. Und nur Muslime. Wer wisse denn schon, ob die Ertrunkenen Muslime waren, heißt es in Zarzis.

      Deshalb fing Marzoug vor drei Jahren einfach an, die Migranten in diesem Sand-Abschnitt zu begraben. Aber er schimpft auf die Verantwortlichen von Zarzis:

      „Wir verlangen doch nur einen Friedhof, wo die Menschenwürde respektiert wird. Was ist denn ein Mensch? Die Religion ist doch unwichtig, niemand betet darum, zu sterben. Wir beerdigen sie, weil wir die Menschenwürde respektieren. Das muss sein!“

      Marzoug schimpft auch auf die Europäer. Er sagt, Europa tötet diese Menschen – weil es ihnen keine legale Einreise erlaube und sie damit auf die Todesschiffe zwinge.

      „Noch ein Grab frei“

      Der 54-Jährige ist Freiwilliger bei der Hilfsorganisation Roter Halbmond. Von den Behörden wird er geduldet, aber er hat oft Krach mit ihnen. Die Ertrunkenen gelten als irreguläre Migranten. Jetzt liegen sie auf einem irregulären Friedhof. Frauen. Männer. Kinder.

      „Der hier war sieben Jahre alt. Sie hatten kein Glück in ihrem Leben, jetzt bringe ich zumindest manchmal ein Spielzeug vorbei. Teilweise sagen die Leute, ich sei verrückt geworden. Weil ich die Gräber besuche. Dabei machen Muslime und Christen das doch auch.“

      Auf dem Grab liegen ein paar Legosteine. Und ein Spielzeugauto. Auf dem Behelfsfriedhof ist nicht mehr viel Platz. Chamseddine Marzoug sagt:

      „Hier ist noch ein Grab frei, ich habe es schon ausgehoben. Vielleicht könnten wir dahinten noch eines unterbringen. Aber danach werde ich das Grabfeld offiziell schließen, damit die ganze Welt erfährt, auch die Verantwortlichen in Zarzis, dass wir keinen Platz mehr haben, um die Leute zu bestatten. Wenn sie bei ihrer Haltung bleiben, dann sammeln wir eben Holz, verbrennen die Leichen, füllen die Asche in Behälter und werfen sie wieder ins Meer.“

      Bevor das geschah, hatten die Behörden dann doch ein Einsehen. Sie stellten ein Stück Acker zur Verfügung. Mittlerweile hat der Rote Halbmond genug Spenden bekommen, und davon ein Stück Land gekauft. Dort sollen künftig die Toten der Migration beerdigt werden.
      Tunesiens Furcht vor Seenotrettung und Aufnahmelagern

      Und dann sind da ja auch noch die Lebenden. Migranten oder Flüchtlinge, die überleben wenn wieder ein Schlepper-Schlauchboot untergeht. Oder die sich aus dem nahegelegenen Nachbarland Libyen hierher, in den Süden Tunesiens, durchgeschlagen haben. Slim Mongi vom Roten Halbmond sagt, etwa 1.000 Migranten seien in der Region untergebracht. Aber er wisse nicht, wie sie noch mehr Menschen beherbergen sollen:

      „Die Aufnahme-Kapazitäten sind wirklich erschöpft. Wir haben Angst davor, dass in Zukunft noch mehr nach Tunesien kommen.“

      Diese Angst teilt Mongi Slim offenbar mit Tunesiens Premierminister Youssef Chahed. Aus Europa wird immer wieder vorgeschlagen, in Nordafrika Aufnahmelager einzurichten. Dort könne man doch über Asylanträge entscheiden, auf diese Weise kämen die Migranten dann gar nicht erst nach Europa. Tunesiens Regierungschef fürchtet offenbar, dass sein Land immer öfter von Schiffen angesteuert werden könnte, die Menschen aus Seenot gerettet haben, aber von europäischen Häfen abgewiesen wurden. Deshalb mahnt Youssef Chahed: Alle Staaten müssten in der Migrationsfrage ihrer Verantwortung gerecht werden. Was immer das heißen mag.

      Chamseddine Marzoug, der Mann, der am Strand von Zarzis die Toten der Migration begräbt, hat jedenfalls seine eigene Vorstellung von Verantwortung. Und die hat viel mit Menschenwürde zu tun.

      https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/tunesien-friedhof-der-ertrunkenen-migranten.799.de.html?dram%3Aartic

  • L’Egypte et la Russie prévoient des exercices militaires conjoints
    http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/10/13/l-egypte-et-la-russie-prevoient-des-exercices-militaires-conjoints_5012716_3

    Pour la première fois, les armées égyptienne et russe vont mener des exercices militaires conjoints sur le sol égyptien, du 15 au 26 octobre, a annoncé mercredi un porte-parole de l’armée égyptienne.

    Ces manœuvres renforcent le rapprochement entre Moscou et Le Caire, qui a voté dimanche au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU en faveur de la contre-proposition de résolution russe sur Alep, rejetée à une large majorité par les autres membres du Conseil.
    […]
    Le journal russe Izvestia a rapporté cette semaine que Moscou discutait de l’ouverture d’une base aérienne militaire en Egypte, une information démentie par le porte-parole d’Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, qui a déclaré au quotidien Al-Ahram qu’il n’autoriserait jamais l’établissement de forces étrangères sur son territoire.

    L’Egypte n’est cependant pas en position de force face à la Russie, qu’elle s’efforce de convaincre de reprendre les vols commerciaux entre les deux pays, suspendus depuis l’attentat qui a détruit l’an dernier un avion de ligne russe au-dessus du Sinaï, tuant les 224 personnes à bord.

    Le tourisme est vital pour l’économie égyptienne, au plus mal depuis le soulèvement contre le président Hosni Moubarak en 2011, et les Russes faisaient partie des rares vacanciers à se rendre en Egypte ces dernières années.

  • Sea memory museum, in Zarzis, Tunisie

    “It’s time to watch life as it crumbles”.Eugenio Montale, ‘Ossi di seppia’.

    Lihideb Mohsen in his Sea Memory Musee in Zarzis, Tunisia, gathers and organizes thousands of objects that he daily gathers on the shores of the Mediterranean, making them ‘ready made’. Objects assembled or simply drawn together become the art works of the world’s biggest collector: 26.820 different objects, as certified in 2002 by the inspectors of the Guinness World Records. Mohsen is not only an eco-artist: he is also a performer and he writes poems . . . Mohsen is a philosopher, a great soul and also a clerk at the local post office, and with this salary he supports himself and his family. Some months after the visit of the Guinness World Records inspectors the waters of the Mediterranean hand over to Mohsen a human body, to whom is devoted an installation in the middle of the museum. Mamadou - so he has named the body - wears the clothes of the dead shipwrecked, with the only addition of a straw hat to protect him from the sun. Mohsen says: “I was happy my friend wasn’t sleeping in the cold anymore.”

    http://alessandrobrasile.4ormat.com/sea_memory_musee_zarzis

    #musée #Tunisie #migration #mer