Tunisia Facing Unprecedented Migration Crisis

Migrants navigate on a metal boat as they are spotted by Tunisian coast guards at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui
Migrants navigate on a metal boat as they are spotted by Tunisian coast guards at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui
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Tunisia Facing Unprecedented Migration Crisis

Migrants navigate on a metal boat as they are spotted by Tunisian coast guards at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui
Migrants navigate on a metal boat as they are spotted by Tunisian coast guards at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui

Bodies of drowned migrants wash up most days on Tunisian beaches, lie unclaimed in hospital corridors and fill morgues, evidence of a surge in people seeking to cross the Mediterranean that has been accelerated by a government crackdown.

Coastguard patrols return to the port of Sfax crammed with migrants stopped at sea in flimsy, overcrowded boats from making the perilous voyage to what they hope will be a better life in Europe.

The number of migrants embarking upon the Mediterranean has risen overall, but the number leaving Tunisia has exploded, with more caught by coastguard patrols than in any previous year, senior National Guard official Houssem Eddine Jebabli said.

The Coastguard told Reuters it has stopped 17,000 people at sea in the first four months of 2023, compared to 3,000 in the same period of 2022.

The numbers spiked after a crackdown on migrants from Sub-Saharan African countries in February that President Kais Saied announced using language the African Union condemned as racialized. Many migrants reported suffering racist attacks.

"Let us go! Your president expelled us but now you are stopping us leaving," shouted a man from the Ivory Coast, who gave his name as Ibrahim, taken aboard a Coastguard ship with his wife and two infant children after they were stopped at sea.

"We were evicted from our home, people threw stones at our house," he said, explaining why they had to leave Tunisia. His comments were echoed by other African migrants Reuters met after their boats were intercepted.

Within minutes of Reuters boarding Coastguard Ship 3505 in Sfax, the captain registered a likely migrant boat on the radar on a course for Italy's Lampedusa island, the main migrant destination.

Over the following hours, Reuters watched the Coastguard stop five boats and track four others it did not have time to chase.

As the crammed boats emerged in the darkness, some with children on board, some migrants begged to be left to continue their voyage. Others tried to resist or evade capture.

On one boat, Reuters saw migrants throwing metal bars at the Coastguard, fighting them with sticks and threatening to throw themselves into the sea. On another, the Coastguard disabled the engine by smashing it with poles.

The tactic of smashing engines has been criticized by migrant rights groups who say some boats have been left rudderless at sea, prey to the waves and in danger of sinking.

Jebabli, the National Guard official, denied imperiling migrants and said Coastguards were increasingly threatened at sea when stopping migrant boats.

Back on the main ship, the captain fired a weapon into the air trying to quell a protest by 200 migrants on board as many angrily demanded to be allowed to go on to Italy.

Some threw confiscated boat engines at the 10 Coastguards on board. Others threatened to set themselves on fire. One man jumped into the sea and was hauled out.

The cost of an illicit voyage is falling as migrants rely less on Tunisian fishing boats and buy their own metal craft made cheaply and meant for only a single journey.

Passage to Italy was previously 5,000 dinars ($1,600) but is now only 1,000 dinars, a police official said, with migrants evenly splitting the cost of the boat and engine.

It costs only 2,000 dinars to make a metal boat that can be sold for 20,000 and ever more people near the coast are doing so, a resident of Sfax's Jebiniana district said, showing Reuters houses that had recently been used for the purpose.

Migrants Reuters interviewed coming off the Coastguard boats said they would try to cross again soon.

But on a stretch of Sfax coastline Reuters saw five bodies that had washed up, one a young boy in jeans and a white T-shirt. The Coastguard recovered four others nearby.

The main city hospital was storing 200 bodies, most outside the small morgue lying stacked in bags on the corridor floors.

Patients complain of the terrible smell. "We cannot bear it anymore," said a nurse.

Regional health chief Hatem Cherif said authorities would build a new cemetery for migrants. "We bury dozens every day," he said.



Will a Weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon Disarm? 

Hezbollah fighters shout slogans during the funeral procession of their top commander Fouad Shukur, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on July 30, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters shout slogans during the funeral procession of their top commander Fouad Shukur, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on July 30, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
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Will a Weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon Disarm? 

Hezbollah fighters shout slogans during the funeral procession of their top commander Fouad Shukur, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on July 30, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters shout slogans during the funeral procession of their top commander Fouad Shukur, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on July 30, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)

Israel's latest airstrike on what it called a Hezbollah missile storage facility in Beirut's southern suburbs came during increasing pressure for the Iran-backed Lebanese group to disarm.

The disarmament of what has been the region's most powerful non-state armed group has come to look increasingly inevitable. Hezbollah is severely weakened after a war with Israel in which much of its top leadership was killed, and after losing a key ally with the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a conduit for Iran to send arms.

Israel and the US are pushing for swift disarmament, but when and how it will happen - if it does - is contested.

Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun has said he is committed to bringing all arms in the country under state control, but that it will happen through discussions around a national security plan and not through force.

Many fear that an attempt to force the issue would lead to civil conflict, which Aoun has called a “red line.”

Hezbollah officials have said in principle that they are willing to discuss the group's arsenal, but leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said in a speech earlier this month that any serious discussions are contingent on Israel withdrawing its forces from territory they occupy in southern Lebanon and halting near-daily airstrikes.

“The Lebanese have to strike a delicate balance” on disarmament, said Aram Nerguizian, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Go too slow ... and you will lose internal momentum and international legitimacy. Go too fast and you get accused by a still-hurting and battered Shiite community” — who make up most of Hezbollah's constituency — “of acting as a proxy for Israel, while risking Hezbollah remnants ... waging an insurgency against the Lebanese government.”

What would disarmament look like? After Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended in 1990, the country went through a process of disarming most of the militias that had taken part. Hezbollah was the exception, given special status as a “resistance force” fighting against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon at the time.

Aoun has outlined his vision of a similar disarmament process. Former Hezbollah fighters could apply to join the Lebanese army as individuals, the president said. Weapons deemed “usable” by the army would become part of its arsenal, while those deemed “unusable” would be destroyed.

Nerguizian said that more than 90% of Hezbollah's “sophisticated and heavy weapons” — which once included tens of thousands of missiles and drones — are believed to have been destroyed already, the vast majority of them by Israel.

What remains, he said, would not be compatible with the Lebanese army's arsenal, which is largely Western-supplied, while Hezbollah uses Iranian, Russian and Chinese-made weapons.

Nerguizian said it is unlikely that large numbers of Hezbollah's tens of thousands of fighters would be incorporated into the army because their ideology has not been compatible as a paramilitary force that has largely been “tied to the preferences of Iran.”

Retired Lebanese army Gen. Hassan Jouni agreed that much of Hezbollah's arsenal would not be easily integrated but said the post-civil war era provides a precedent for integrating fighters.

After going through training, “they become like any other soldier,” he said. While there might be a “religious and ideological obstacle” for some Hezbollah fighters, “I do not think this is the case for everyone.”

Ibrahim Mousawi, a member of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, told The Associated Press that “everything is open for discussion.”

“We don’t want to jump into discussing the details,” he said. “This is something that is being left in the hands of the president and the Hezbollah leadership to deal with.”

Mousawi said the destruction of Hezbollah’s arsenal “shouldn’t be acceptable to Lebanon.”

The cash-strapped Lebanese army has struggled to maintain its aging arsenal. In recent years, it has turned to the US and Qatar to help pay soldiers' salaries.

“We are part of the Lebanese strength,” Mousawi said. “If the Americans are really keen to show us that they really respect Lebanon and they care for the Lebanese, ... why don’t they equip the Lebanese army with defensive weapons?”

When might disarming occur? US envoy Morgan Ortagus said earlier this month in an interview broadcast on Lebanese channel LBCI that Hezbollah should be disarmed “as soon as possible."

A Lebanese diplomat said there is ongoing pressure from the Americans on that front. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Hezbollah’s stance that it will not discuss giving up its armed wing before Israel withdraws from five key border points in southern Lebanon appears likely to drag out the process. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain there indefinitely to secure their border and guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.

Israeli officials did not respond to a request for comment on the issue of Lebanon's army integrating former Hezbollah weapons and fighters.

Lebanese officials say that the Israeli presence violates the ceasefire agreement in November, under which Israel and Hezbollah were supposed to withdraw their forces from southern Lebanon, with the Lebanese army taking control alongside UN peacekeepers.

The Lebanese diplomat said that US officials had acknowledged that Israeli forces remaining in the five border points constituted an “occupation” but had not put strong pressure on Israel to withdraw quickly.

A “smart way to break the deadlock” and avoid further escalation is for Washington to increase its support for the Lebanese army and push Israel to withdraw, said Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official and senior managing director of the Washington-based TRENDS US consulting firm.

Retired Lebanese army Gen. Elias Hanna said he believes that Hezbollah is “still in the phase of denial” regarding the diminution of its military and political clout.

He said disarmament needs to take place as part of broader discussions about Lebanon's military doctrine and strategy. The Lebanese army could benefit from the experience of Hezbollah, which for many years maintained deterrence with Israel before the latest war, he said.

Saab said he believes the outcome is not in doubt.

“Hezbollah has a choice,” he said. “Either lay down its arms or have them removed by Israeli force.”