'Mediterranean's silent genocide': Tunisian NGOs demand end to EU migration deal

Civil society groups in Tunisia have renewed calls for the government to suspend its migration agreement with the European Union (EU), accusing it of complicity in a "silent genocide" in the Mediterranean.

On 2 July, dozens of activists and relatives of missing migrants staged a protest outside the Italian embassy in Tunis, urging an immediate end to policies they say have turned the sea into a graveyard for those fleeing poverty and conflict.

In statements delivered during the rally, advocates for migrant rights accused EU member states of worsening the crisis by slashing funding for civilian rescue vessels. They warned that each new restriction on search-and-rescue operations only increases the death toll.

"Europe is turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard, and Italy bears primary responsibility", said Imad Sultani, president of the Association for Land for All.

The local group says that Italy is responsible for the "systematic violations" suffered by migrants both at sea and in Italian detention centres, where abuses often drive detainees to suicide or result in suspicious deaths.

Last December, the Council of Europe's anti-torture committee released a report criticising Italy's treatment of migrants in local detention centres, citing cases of physical mistreatment, excessive force and the use of psychotropic drugs on detainees.

At the protest, families carried portraits of their missing children. They demanded answers about their fate, urging both Tunisian and European authorities to investigate the disappearances and to end what they described as policies that criminalise migration.

Since 2011, more than 5,000 Tunisians are believed to have gone missing in the Mediterranean. Only 501 of these cases have been officially recorded by a government-appointed commission, whose work was suspended nearly a decade ago.

The Central Mediterranean route—primarily from Tunisia—remains the second-busiest and most dangerous corridor to the European Union.

According to Italy's interior ministry, nearly 30,000 migrants have reached Italian shores so far this year, including more than 5,000 unaccompanied minors.

The protest followed recent moves by European governments, including Germany, to reduce or cut financial support to civilian-led sea rescue groups.

Last month, Germany's foreign ministry confirmed that it would no longer fund NGOs operating in the Mediterranean, marking a further tightening of the country's migration policy.

Among those affected are SOS Humanity, SOS Méditerranée, and Sea-Eye, groups whose operations, campaigners say, are now critically underfunded.

In Tunisia, civil society leaders insist that further restrictions on rescue missions must be met with mounting pressure on EU governments, along with renewed efforts to account for the thousands still untraced.

"Every step to restrict rescue ships is a step towards more deaths. Our role as civil society is to protest, and to shame the states complicit in this violence," added the president of the Association for Land for All during the protest.

In 2023, the European Commission paid $150 million to the Tunisian government under a controversial migration and development agreement, despite growing concerns over authoritarianism in the North African state and its treatment of sub-Saharan migrants.

That same year, Tunisian authorities forcibly deported some 400 sub-Saharan migrants and asylum seekers to the Sahara buffer zone near the Libyan border, leaving them to fend for themselves.

The New Arab spoke to several migrants at the time, who reported being subjected to physical violence and forced to sign repatriation documents.

Despite Tunisia's policies, Italy signed three agreements worth $50 million in aid for energy projects and credit for small and medium-sized businesses in 2024, in exchange for Tunis's cooperation on migration.

Tunisia is a major transit point for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants seeking to reach Europe each year, with Italy as their main point of entry.

Yet while President Kais Saied has repeatedly denounced their presence as part of a "criminal plot" to alter the country's "demographic makeup", he has rarely addressed the emigration of Tunisians—who, according to the UN Refugee agency (UNHCR) still constitute the majority of those crossing from Tunisia to Italy (2024 report).

The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) notes that throughout Tunisia's modern history, the number of irregular migrants departing the country has closely reflected its socio-political climate.

"It's the growing feeling of despair that increases the number of irregular migrants. When people feel there's no hope, they try to leave, no matter the cost," Romdhan Ben Amor told TNA.

Today, Tunisia is grappling with a worsening economic crisis marked by high inflation and soaring unemployment, while politically it faces growing authoritarianism under President Saied, who has dismantled key democratic institutions since his 2021 power grab.