Hind Al Soulia – Riyadh – Zarzis fishing port in eastern Tunisia sprawls out in every direction with all manner of craft jostling for berths among the vast network of wharves.
Hulking trawlers that spend weeks fishing the waters of the Mediterranean compete for space among the small traditional craft of local fishermen.
Now though, the boatmen of Zarzis are turning to a new trade carrying Tunisians across the blue waters from North Africa for a new life in Europe.
In recent years, thousands of mainly sub-Saharan Africans have paid to be smuggled to the shores of the Mediterranean in Libya and Tunisia and made the perilous crossing to Europe.
Thousands have died on the way.
In the years after Tunisia’s 2011 uprising, the number of locals trying to cross fell to almost none. But the numbers began to increase after the country’s economic downturn in 2017.
Now, Tunisians in large numbers are delivering their verdict on the country’s future in the most dramatic way available, by gambling all on a clandestine trip to Europe to build their lives afresh.
The numbers are stark. Italian authorities responsible for intercepting the boats from Tunisia say the first seven months of 2019 saw only 1,277 arrivals from Tunisia.
For the same period this year, that number was 6,628.
In July alone, as the seas calmed and the country’s lockdown measures eased, 4,252 people were intercepted by Italian authorities, up from only 502 in July 2019.
These figures do not include the “ghost landings” that elude authorities.
Recent years have not been kind to Zarzis. Once a relatively prosperous tourist town, the instability after uprisings in Tunisia and in nearby Libya, just 80 kilometres away, saw the town’s resorts dropped from international itineraries.
Meanwhile, hotels nearby on Djerba Island limped through political crises and economic turmoil.
The coronavirus pandemic made the situation even more dire.
Despite avoiding the worst of the outbreak Tunisia has recorded just over 1,700 cases and 52 deaths the economic damage of lockdown, the loss of the tourism season and the global downturn will be critical.
The government’s figures show about 400,000 jobs could be lost in the tourism sector, with the results rippling throughout the Tunisian economy.
The IMF estimated in April that the country’s economy would shrink by 4.3 per cent because of the pandemic, with joblessness and social unrest inevitably set to follow.
Increasingly, Italian authorities are reporting that families and the middle class are among a tide that was dominated by young men hoping to establish themselves in Europe, before returning to Tunisia to build houses on land inherited from their families.
In early August, the Italian coastguard intercepted one group of 11 Tunisians dressed for their holidays, pulling wheeled trolleys, with one walking her poodle on a lead.
The images of those arriving in Europe have done little to endear Tunisians to a nation already reeling from the full force of the global pandemic.
The Migration Data Portal website estimates that 15,500 people have died between January 2014 and October 2019 while making the crossing.
Italian authorities say Tunisians are now the largest single nationality arriving at reception centres.