2023-06-18 08:38:35
- Mohamed Hamida
- BBC – Cairo
Families of some Egyptians missing in the sunken boat disaster
As soon as you set foot in the villages of Abrash and Mashtoul Al-Souq in the Sharkia Governorate, northeast of Cairo, you will find people filled with grief, waiting for any information about their children who went missing in the Mediterranean, following the sinking of a boat they were traveling in with others off the coast of Greece.
One of the residents says while holding his hand, I just want to know, “Did my brother die or is he still alive? If he died, I would bury him with my own hands.”
The villages of Abrash and Mashtoul Al-Souq are among an unknown number of Egyptian villages whose people embarked on an unsafe journey in an attempt to cross the Mediterranean to the coast of Italy to change their reality. But that flight turned into one of the worst humanitarian disasters in illegal immigration operations, with hundreds missing.
Rida al-Sayyed Jadallah sat on a bed that seemed to be in a delicate condition, his eyes closed and the words came out with great difficulty. He said while trying to hold on: “I have one son whom I brought from this world, and he was determined to migrate with the youth.”
Reda says that he was forced to sell his property to secure the sum of 140,000 Egyptian pounds, equivalent to 4,500 dollars, which is the price of his son’s ticket on the ill-fated boat heading to Italy, after his son traveled to Libya without his knowledge.
And Reda added, “My son, Muhammad, boarded the immigration boat on Friday (June 9), before there was no news of him, after taking away the phones from them, until we heard that a boat sank off the coast of Greece.”
Seven members of the Reda family boarded this boat, including his son and nephew.
The Egyptian embassy in Athens announced that 43 Egyptians had survived the disaster
Since the sinking of the boat, which was carrying about 750 people on board, according to the testimonies of the survivors, on Wednesday morning, June 14, Reda has not heard news about his son or his relatives, and whether they are dead or still alive.
The Egyptian embassy in Athens announced the 43 Egyptian survivors whose identities had been confirmed since that time, and published the names on its social media pages.
At this time, the fate of these people remains unknown, along with hundreds of others who are missing, as hopes of finding other survivors are diminishing.
The Greek authorities arrested nine Egyptians on board the boat, after accusing them of illegally smuggling people and causing negligent homicide.
Organized gangs have been operating for decades
Muhammad Saleh tells how his 18-year-old son, Yehia, traveled to Libya without his knowledge.
He says that he woke up one morning, and did not find his son, who took his money and sold his mobile phone, then called his father after he arrived in Libya, confirming his desire to immigrate to Italy.
Saleh added that his son fell into the hands of human traffickers, and after that threats began to come to us to pay or kill, and confirmed that he offered “smugglers” to pay 30,000 pounds for his son’s return to Egypt.
The Greek authorities arrested nine Egyptians on board the boat, after accusing them of human smuggling
Saleh says that he reached the phone number in charge of them in Libya, where a Libyan person known as “Abu Sultan” answered him and told him that Yahya entered what is called “the storage”, which is an area in one of the farms in the east of Libya, waiting for the appropriate time to board the boat. .
One of the women says that her brother, Ahmed Magdy, is married and has a young daughter, but he preferred emigration to improve the situation. Weeping, she adds that the so-called delegate goes to the houses to collect money.
Saleh says, “We all know the delegate who, in order to ensure that he is not being watched, gives different appointments in different places. He told me: Come to Abrash, then to another nearby village, then to the market mashtoul, so that he can make sure before handing over the money that I am not being watched.”
Perilous journey
“I am 63 years old. These smuggling operations have been going on for twenty years and more. They offer temptations on the Internet for young people to travel,” said the seventy-year-old man, before crying out to his son.
According to testimonies from relatives of immigrants to BBC Arabic, young people in Europe provide the tip of the thread to everyone who wants to emigrate from Egypt, and some video clips are spread on social media, of young people who have successfully completed illegal immigration, which is what tempts young people to go through the experience.
Some video clips are spread on social media, of young people who successfully completed illegal immigration, which tempts young people to take part in the experiment.
The searcher for a way to migrate, young or old, contacts the numbers available on Facebook for people who carry out smuggling operations, and the negotiation process begins immediately about the price, which seemed unified and estimated at 140,000 pounds per person, as the immigrant pays a small payment first.
Muhammad Salih, one of the residents, says that mass transit cars or “microbuses” gather those wishing to migrate. Saleh adds that they head to Alexandria, then to Salloum on the border with Libya in the far northwest of Egypt, and there they are left to one of the bedouins, so that the real journey begins with smuggling operations across the Egyptian-Libyan border.
Saleh asks aloud, “How do they cross the border? Crossing people so easily means that weapons and drugs also cross the border.”
Saleh says that he contacted the Arab in charge of the smuggling operation from the border, hoping for the return of his son, but he did not respond.
Another from the village of Abrash says that when the children arrive in Libya, they are transferred to a farm near the eastern coast in Libya, in preparation for the start of the journey, and here a new phase begins.
The people of the village of Abrash unanimously agreed that the stage that precedes boarding the smuggling boat begins with extortion operations to pay the full amount for each person, before going down to the sea. Some of them said that they had received threats to kill their children in the event of non-payment, which was confirmed to us by specialists in migration studies.
Economic conditions, of course, are the primary driver of migration
Ahmed Magdy Muhammad’s wife says that she and her husband’s family painstakingly collected the required amount, then there was no news of him since the day he boarded the ill-fated boat and she did not know anything about him.
The founder of the Egyptian Society for Migration Studies, Ayman Zuhri, confirmed to the BBC that human traffickers in these areas intend to deliver human shipments to Europe to preserve their reputation and sources of funds from smuggling and obtain the second payment of costs, if any.
Zuhri adds: Young people go to emigration with high hopes, and do not throw themselves into perdition as some imagine. No one wants to die, but they are surprised by a large number of immigrants in a boat that may be rickety, so crossing operations become fraught with dangers.
difficult economic reality
Mohamed Ahmed Abdel-Al, the brother of one of the missing, says that his brother traveled with immigrants to improve his living conditions, especially since they live in a house for rent, and they have not been able to buy a house for four years.
Zohri believes that the economic conditions are, of course, the first motive for emigration.
He adds that if European countries open their doors to regular immigration, these young people will not have opportunities in the large competitive market there, stressing that Europe attracts highly trained doctors and opens its doors to these more, even if it needs lower jobs as well. But untrained or poorly educated young immigrants are not welcome there.
In 2014 the National Committee for Combating Illegal Immigration was established
Combating illegal immigration
The Egyptian government has been raising awareness of the dangers of illegal immigration with initiatives such as the “lifeboats” launched by the Ministry of Immigration, and attempts to provide small or micro projects.
The National Committee for Combating Illegal Immigration was established in 2014 and is affiliated to the Egyptian Prime Minister.
Some parents send their children to emigrate, depending on the Italian law, which prohibits the deportation of immigrant children under the age of eighteen, so that they can obtain education, residence, and then citizenship. This explains the large number of children on the boat.
Zuhri added that the economic conditions “will not improve in the foreseeable time,” adding that unemployment rates “reach 24% in the relatively young age group, despite being close to 7% at the general level.” Therefore, whoever imagines that irregular migration has realistic “illusion” solutions.
Ambassador Namira Negm, Director of the African Observatory for Migration at the Organization of the African Union, stressed that addressing the problem of migration “needs investment in the development of African countries and the exchange of lessons learned.”
In her speech at the “Conference for Launching the First Statistical Report on Labor Migration,” she said that the solutions to this issue “are not a wish, but by launching projects that create jobs for young people.”
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