The desperate migrants who are willing to risk everything to reach Europe
“The difference between us and the Italian boats is that they get to pick up live ones, while by and large we only find dead ones.”
The Tunisian Coast Guard officer said it was upsetting work – retrieving from the sea drowned migrants who had perished trying to make the journey from North Africa to the Italian islands of Sicily or Lampadusa.
For the most part fishermen come across the bodies of men, women and children, and radio in the locations. The coastguard said this had been the busiest year ever.
Europe pays the Tunisians to be its gatekeepers and we are on board a fast patrol boat provided by the EU. We’re off the Tunisian island of Djerba close to the point where Tunisian and Libyan territorial waters meet.
War-torn and lawless, Libya has become the primary launchpad for migrants setting sail for what they believe is a better life in Europe.
Their passage takes them through Tunisian waters, where many an un-seaworthy overloaded vessel has foundered in heavy seas. The coastline here is littered with the carcasses of washed-up shipwrecks.
They are not the only things to wash up though. One day in September, 54 bodies came ashore on a beach here.
But the risks don’t seem to be much of a deterrent. We met up with a group of Tunisians just before they set off. Two of them were 18-year-olds who had not told their parents they were going.
One said he would miss his Mum and Dad, but that it was a price worth paying for a better future.
Later that night we watched on a beach as eight men hurriedly jumped into a small dinghy with an outboard. The sea was calm and they chugged into the darkness, hopeful that within a day they would be in Italian territorial waters.
The smuggler who had arranged the journey was charing $1,500 a head. It’s good money. He said he was responsible for getting at least 350 migrants to Europe.
At one stage he was caught and jailed for his work. But he bribed his way out of jail.
With the help of UN money the Tunisian Red Crescent houses many migrants saved from the sea. We met a dozen or so and their nationalities were a roll-call of African conflicts – Eritrean, Somali, Sudanese.
One man told me that in September their boat had broken up and they had spent two days at sea clinging to wreckage.
Another said that had been his fifth attempt to make it over the Med. He said he knew the boat was unsafe but that the Libyan smugglers had forced them at point to set sail. Each migrant had paid over a $1,000.
If they make it the hundred or so miles into Italian waters then they won’t be sent back to North Africa. They will have made it to Europe.
The Italians say that in October alone 14,000 managed to do so, bringing the total so far this year to over 100,000.
Most have been beneficiaries of an Italian search and rescue effort that concluded at the end of October. It was established in the wake of the furore caused by the drowning of six hundred migrants off Lampadusa in October 2013.
Britain, for one, doesn't support the continuation of the rescue mission, arguing that the removal of such a safety net will deter other migrants for trying.
Critics say the number of drownings in the Mediterranean will skyrocket.
The problem is that no safety net doesn’t make life any better in the war-torn countries of Africa.
Europe has become magnetic north for tens of thousands of Africans and its pull is irresistible.
Hanna lost her brother and cousin to the sea. They set off from southern Tunisia three years ago, but their boat got into trouble and they drowned.
She said she meets friends of Mohammed and Abdullah who still yearn to reach Europe. She tries to talk them out of it, citing her own family tragedy. But, she said they don’t listen. The dream is uppermost in their minds, not the dangers.
The migrants fished-out alive while trying to make the journey said they would definitely try again. Most told us they wanted to reach the UK.
It seems all were determined to live free in Europe or to die trying.