In Tunisia, mothers mourn their sons who died at sea

Leslie Carretero, special correspondent in Tunisia.

Fatma has just finished cooking her couscous. She slowly enters the living room. The decoration is basic. A dining table, a few plastic chairs, mattresses at the back of the living room which will be installed on the floor at night for her youngest son, dress the room. In the next room, her husband is watching television.

Dressed in a blue jellaba adorned with embroidery and wearing a green cloth on her head to cover her hair, Fatma has drawn facial features. This 65-year-old woman lost one of her three sons at sea in 2011. For 10 years, she has mourned her loss.

Fatma lives in Zarzis, in the south of Tunisia, a few kilometers from the sea. “He is not dead, he is surely in Italy,” she reassures herself. The body of the young man, then 21, has never been found. He disappeared after leaving the Tunisian coast in the hope of reaching Europe, without warning his relatives. “But no mum, he is dead, otherwise we would hear from him,” replied annoyed Ali, the youngest of the family.

Reality upsets Fatma. She tries to contain her tears. In vain. She insists on taking us to her room to show us the photo of her missing son. The frame of the deceased surrounded by his parents sits above the marriage bed.

A few minutes later, her husband joined her, looking haggard. Not a word will come out of his mouth but his sad gaze will speak for him. Without a body, it is difficult for the family to mourn.

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Spouses are not the only ones in this situation. Since 2011, at least 34 people from Zarzis have disappeared while trying to reach Italy.

And since the start of the year, more than 10,000 people have joined this country from Tunisia. A figure up 27% compared to the same period in 2020. Blame it on the economic crisis and then the Covid-19 pandemic which has accentuated the precariousness of the population and destroyed the dreams of the future of Tunisian youth.

“I don’t know what went through his mind”

Samia and her husband share the same pain. Their son, a master’s student at the University of Tunis, has not given any sign of life since February 17, 2021. That day, Fedi boarded his cousin’s fishing boat and never returned. “As soon as I mention it, I feel the heat rising inside my body. I never thought my son would do that. He had it all here, I don’t know what happened to him. head, ”she said over the phone. A history and geography teacher, she lived with her husband in a comfortable house on the northeast coast of Tunisia, in Kelibia.

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Since the tragedy, the parents have left the family home, too loaded with memories. They settled in another part of the city. The father is very weak, he doesn’t eat much anymore and has lost a lot of weight.

“They stayed two months in the water”

When Jalila answers the phone, her voice is weak. His two sons died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2019. Aged 22 and 24, Mahdi and Heidi either did not notify their parents of their trip. One day, without news of her two boys for many weeks, a friend sends her the link to an Italian press article on a shipwreck at sea. In the photos, she recognizes the tattoos of her sons.

“We found their bodies two months after their death. They remained two months in the water,” she insists, her voice faltering. Very quickly, she starts to cry. “I’m sorry, I cry every day, I no longer have the taste for anything”.

“The state does not help us”

The mother took two years to collect the bodies of her children and bury them near her home. Jalila says she has not received any aid from the Tunisian state. Every day, she knocked on the door of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians abroad. Without ever having an answer. “I managed on my own. I managed to get a visa thanks to a Tunisian deputy and the DNA was taken by the Red Cross. The government does not want to help mothers find their son,” she plague.

Jalila and Samia are part of an association of mothers of missing migrants. Together they “fight[nt] against the authorities “to get” the truth. “” There are thousands of missing and no one takes care of the families, “Jalila moans.

With the help of an Italian collective, seven mothers spent six days in Sicily in early October to contact lawyers and try to obtain information. They also donated their DNA in a laboratory designed for deceased migrants. “But to this day, I don’t know any more,” Samia breathes. “I don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”

These decimated families have only one fear: that another child will cross the Mediterranean. Fatma is worried about her 27-year-old son. Seven times Ali boarded a dinghy to reach Europe. All his attempts have failed but he remains determined to try his luck again. “When he does not come home at night, I understand that he has taken to the sea. I do not sleep at night, I look at my phone while waiting for a message from him.” Standing by his side, Ali is affected by his mother’s pain but he does not let go: he will not stop until he has achieved his goal.