0:00:02.886,0:00:07.291
[Man] Quinze Minutes: the editors' reporting magazine
0:00:09.407,0:00:11.464
[Woman] After the Lampedusa shipwreck,
0:00:11.464,0:00:15.132
we carry on our inquiry into the causes of recent migrants' boats shipwrecks.
0:00:15.132,0:00:17.893
Quinze Minutes magazine crossed the Mediterranean
0:00:17.893,0:00:21.061
to meet NGOs, academics and families who inquire
0:00:21.061,0:00:24.063
into the dramatic circumstances of Europe-bound migration.
0:00:24.063,0:00:26.854
"Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean: who is guilty?"
0:00:26.854,0:00:31.068
a reportage in Tunis by Alexandre Habay, edited by Sylvain Michel.
0:00:33.051,0:00:36.748
[coast guard] Pronto? A che distanza siete da Lampedusa?[br](Listen, how far are you from Lampedusa)
0:00:36.748,0:00:39.776
[shipwrecked man] [unclear - in Arabic?][br][coast gard] Dove siete? (Where are you?)
0:00:39.776,0:00:42.067
[shipwrecked man] [unclear - in Arabic?][br][coast gard] Dove siete? (Where are you?)
0:00:42.067,0:00:45.864
[shipwrecked man] [unclear - in Arabic?][br][coast gard] Pronto? (Listen)
0:00:46.710,0:00:51.932
[Alexandre Habay (?)] What we heard is a Mayday call made via cell phone
0:00:51.932,0:00:57.830
by someone on the boat that got shipwrecked in front of Lampedusa
0:00:57.830,0:01:01.142
on September 6, 2012.
0:01:01.142,0:01:07.170
It's a Mayday call. It's really, really tragic to hear that.
0:01:07.170,0:01:11.716
The caller's hopelessness perfectly comes through
0:01:11.716,0:01:16.557
and unfortunately, this call is also rather unclear, actually.
0:01:16.557,0:01:23.368
This is certainly one of the reasons why it was difficult for the Italian coast guards
0:01:23.368,0:01:27.107
to immediately identify the position of the boat after this call,
0:01:27.107,0:01:31.127
and this may have been a cause of the very shipwreck
0:01:31.127,0:01:36.267
and of over 70 people's disappearance.
0:01:36.267,0:01:40.226
This incident actually remains a mystery:
0:01:40.226,0:01:46.475
over 50 people were rescued, about ten bodies were found
0:01:46.475,0:01:51.532
but the other people were never found
0:01:51.532,0:01:55.980
and thus it is not known whether they in fact survived
0:01:55.980,0:01:59.312
or if the boat sank,
0:01:59.312,0:02:06.151
as neither the wreck nor the other bodies were found.
0:02:06.151,0:02:12.270
GSM coverage usually starts a few kilometers from coasts.
0:02:12.270,0:02:16.400
So we know that this boat was very, very near Lampione
0:02:16.400,0:02:20.854
when this Mayday call was made - and there were several such calls
0:02:20.854,0:02:28.637
and several calls to passengers' families too.
0:02:28.637,0:02:33.368
[music]
0:02:33.368,0:02:35.605
[Charles Heller] So, my name is Charles Heller.
0:02:35.605,0:02:41.891
I'm a reseracher at London University and I am presently here
0:02:41.891,0:02:44.891
to support families and associations
0:02:44.891,0:02:52.006
in reconstructing various sea incidents
0:02:52.006,0:02:57.839
in order to understand what actually happened to all these missing or dead people:
0:02:57.839,0:03:03.220
in fact, these families whom we shall meet are searching for the truth.
0:03:06.201,0:03:08.239
[Imed Soltani] Well, I'm Imed Soltani.
0:03:08.239,0:03:12.867
I've just founded this association called "La terre pour tous" (Earth for all).
0:03:12.867,0:03:16.629
I'm Tunisian, an Arab
0:03:16.629,0:03:18.947
and I have to work more than you
0:03:18.947,0:03:23.742
because if your European children want to go to Tunisia or Algeria
0:03:23.742,0:03:25.826
they can come without hassle.
0:03:25.826,0:03:30.576
But as to us, if someone wants to go to the other side, they must die at sea.
0:03:30.576,0:03:33.895
And there's this name, I can tell you this name
0:03:33.895,0:03:37.798
There's the name of Mohamed El Himi, this one
0:03:37.798,0:03:48.003
There's Husein ben Ahmed el Himi, there's Nebil el Gazueli, there's Ali ben Attar ben Bouli,
0:03:48.003,0:03:50.255
There's Sadr ben Bouli,
0:03:50.255,0:03:53.924
all these names, this Kerim ben Ourdi Mbarki,
0:03:53.924,0:04:00.611
this one you see a third (check) -- this one is the land of Lampedusa.
0:04:00.616,0:04:05.662
[Habay] So actually, you've enlarged pictures from Italian TV news
0:04:05.662,0:04:09.184
and you try to identify these young boat people?
0:04:09.184,0:04:12.988
[Soltani] Yes. Families have recognized these children.
0:04:12.988,0:04:16.068
[Habay] Thus these young people, visibly, survived`
0:04:16.068,0:04:17.891
Where are they now? Do you know where they are?
0:04:17.891,0:04:19.927
Are they in touch with their families? Did it end w--
0:04:19.927,0:04:23.643
[Soltani] No, nobody, no contact with families.
0:04:23.643,0:04:28.276
People who get into Lampedusa don't give their real name.
0:04:28.276,0:04:29.791
They tell other names.
0:04:29.791,0:04:33.420
Some people don't even want to give their fingerprints.
0:04:33.705,0:04:39.037
[children's voices]
0:04:39.037,0:04:40.460
[Habay] What are we looking at?
0:04:40.460,0:04:43.144
[Man] This one is my brother, this one.
0:04:43.144,0:04:47.042
[Habay] What's his name[br][Man] M'hamed Haboubi - Mohamed Haboub.
0:04:47.042,0:04:49.830
[Habay] Yet there are -- well, the pictures is not very clear -
0:04:49.830,0:04:51.652
yet there are many -- are you sure it's him?
0:04:51.652,0:04:57.301
[Man] Yes, my brother: he's been living with me for 22 years.
0:04:57.301,0:04:59.247
[Habay] And where do you think your brother is, now?
0:04:59.247,0:05:03.721
[Man] I don't know, it's the province (?) -- we are trying to find where he is.
0:05:03.721,0:05:09.305
[Habay] Because of course, if he'd safely reached Europe,
0:05:09.305,0:05:11.448
he would have called you; are you expecting a call from him?
0:05:11.448,0:05:20.673
[Man] Of course, but the Italian government made no declaration about these people.
0:05:24.051,0:05:28.625
[Heller] Clearly, any time a relative is missing,
0:05:28.625,0:05:34.253
the family can't help but imagining what their fate might be.
0:05:34.253,0:05:40.836
And people in Switzerland whose relatives are missing go through the same experience
0:05:40.836,0:05:48.316
our mindset can't help but imagining the worse as well as the best scripts
0:05:48.316,0:05:53.273
thus I think that the first thing these families request
0:05:53.273,0:05:57.001
is to know what happened to their relatives.
0:05:57.535,0:06:00.425
[Habay] Thus you, Charles Heller, in this research you are doing,
0:06:00.425,0:06:04.407
funded for instance by the Swiss national research fund,
0:06:04.407,0:06:09.582
thus by what means do you try to reconstruct what happened at sea?
0:06:09.582,0:06:12.677
Do you have technical means, for instance, do you conduct an inquiry?
0:06:12.677,0:06:15.955
[Heller] Nowadays, incidents leave multiple traces:
0:06:15.955,0:06:19.225
when there are survivors, their accounts,
0:06:19.225,0:06:23.273
many migrants phone their families.
0:06:23.273,0:06:27.890
Then there are all kinds of other elements that can be used, like satellite images,
0:06:27.890,0:06:32.414
which can enable us to understand which boats, which ships
0:06:32.414,0:06:34.991
were near a given boat.
0:06:34.991,0:06:39.788
[Habay] So why are you trying to reconstruct this context, actualy?
0:06:39.788,0:06:41.457
In order to identify responsibilities?
0:06:41.457,0:06:45.799
[Heller] In the last 20 years, there have been over 14'000 deaths
0:06:45.799,0:06:49.065
at the sea boarders, only of the Mediterranean.
0:06:49.065,0:06:52.370
And these are only documented instances, so obviously, there have been many more
0:06:52.370,0:06:56.553
and no one answers for these deaths.
0:06:56.553,0:07:02.893
In 2011 there was a turning point
0:07:02.893,0:07:08.070
with NATO's military intervention in Libya,
0:07:08.070,0:07:14.036
and with the shared feeling of many associations, who said:
0:07:14.036,0:07:19.591
"But there has been a record number of deaths this year in central Mediterranea
0:07:19.591,0:07:25.216
whereas over 40 NATO ships are deployed in front of Libyan coasts,
0:07:25.216,0:07:29.096
precisely in the area where these deaths happened."
0:07:29.096,0:07:35.494
And in this context, we made an inquiry about a ship that left Tripoli
0:07:35.494,0:07:38.364
on March 27, 2011
0:07:38.364,0:07:43.109
and after barely 24 hours, was in distress
0:07:43.109,0:07:46.015
with no more fuel.
0:07:46.015,0:07:51.341
It drifted for 14 days in the area monitored by NATO
0:07:51.341,0:07:54.162
which, again, was probably, at that time,
0:07:54.162,0:07:58.156
the most monitored sea area in the world.
0:07:58.156,0:08:04.680
Italian and Maltese authorities, NATO, all new about their distress.
0:08:04.680,0:08:11.434
In spite of the fact that there had been two visits by an helicopter marked "army",
0:08:11.434,0:08:15.304
and when half the people on board were already dead,
0:08:15.304,0:08:21.132
passengers drifted near a big army ship
0:08:21.132,0:08:29.418
whose crew just photographed them before abandoning them to their fate.
0:08:29.418,0:08:35.583
In the end, only 9 out of the 72 passengers survived.
0:08:35.583,0:08:40.823
The report we wrote about this tragedy, this shipwreck
0:08:40.823,0:08:47.486
was the basis for a claim filed against the various states involved in the Libya operation.
0:08:47.486,0:08:54.255
This is the first attempt to identify who is directly answerable for these deaths
0:08:54.255,0:08:58.057
beyond, again the deep political responsibility
0:08:58.057,0:09:01.120
of the European Union and of the Southern Mediterranean sates.
0:09:01.120,0:09:05.761
And we also try to make inquiries about other shipwrecks that happened.
0:09:05.761,0:09:11.655
We are closely following incidents that happened in Lampedusa in recent days.
0:09:11.655,0:09:16.139
[Voices in Arabic]
0:09:16.139,0:09:20.029
[Habay or Heller?] So we are in Gebel Achmad, a very lower class neighborhood of Tunis
0:09:20.029,0:09:25.848
from which about twenty boys left on the boat
0:09:25.848,0:09:28.454
whose Mayday call we heard.
0:09:28.454,0:09:34.696
We're going to meet families who are still wondering what happened on that day.
0:09:34.696,0:09:37.199
[Voices in Arabic]
0:09:37.199,0:09:39.191
[Bensmida] My name is Mohamed Bensmida.
0:09:39.191,0:09:44.200
I am the father of Ahmed Bensmida who was shipwrecked on September 6, 2012
0:09:44.200,0:09:49.737
[words in arabic] 17 year old.
0:09:49.737,0:09:55.023
[Interpreter] His son is 17 year old and he wanted to do as his friends from this neighborhood,
0:09:55.023,0:09:59.446
so, in order to better and change his life,
0:09:59.446,0:10:01.518
he suddenly left.
0:10:01.518,0:10:03.677
[Bensmida ?] The agent...[br][Habay?] 136 people on board?
0:10:03.677,0:10:08.897
[Bensmida ?] Yes. That's when they arrived, 80 amesh, missing.
0:10:09.012,0:10:11.831
[Habay] What happened? Does one know?
0:10:11.831,0:10:19.043
[Bensmida] They say that they are, maneh, that the boat got broken, but [continues in Arabic]
0:10:19.043,0:10:21.035
[Interpreter] The script becomes unclear after that.
0:10:21.035,0:10:25.539
[Interpreter + Bensmida in Arabic] They are not convinced of what really happened.
0:10:25.539,0:10:32.447
His son's friends say that they saw his son swimming, in front of them.
0:10:32.447,0:10:35.308
And as night fell, they didn't see him afterwards.
0:10:35.308,0:10:39.317
It's ironic that a pregnant woman can reach the coast swimming
0:10:39.317,0:10:43.069
and that others haven't - well, that they died.
0:10:43.069,0:10:45.768
[Bensmida ?] It isn't true. I'd like to have more explanations.
0:10:45.821,0:10:49.170
[Habay] If he'd managed to reach Italy, you would have heard from him,
0:10:49.170,0:10:51.396
or was he registered by authorities?
0:10:51.396,0:10:55.356
[Interpreter + Bensmida in Arabic] He says they live in a delusion
0:10:55.356,0:10:59.712
because they've heard that some people reached the shore,
0:10:59.712,0:11:01.488
then some are in prison.
0:11:01.488,0:11:05.709
What's sickening is the delusion and vagueness.
0:11:05.709,0:11:09.570
0:11:09.570,0:11:14.583
0:11:14.583,0:11:16.929
0:11:16.929,0:11:21.296
0:11:21.335,0:11:27.665
0:11:27.665,0:11:31.140
0:11:31.140,0:11:33.086
0:11:33.086,0:11:37.709
0:11:37.709,0:11:42.733
0:11:42.733,0:11:49.315
0:11:49.315,0:11:53.797
0:11:53.797,0:12:03.169
0:12:03.169,0:12:05.330
0:12:05.330,0:12:07.909
0:12:07.909,0:12:10.391
0:12:10.391,0:12:14.998
0:12:14.998,0:12:19.359
0:12:19.359,0:12:23.705
0:12:23.705,0:12:27.993
0:12:27.993,0:12:32.111
0:12:32.111,0:12:36.413
0:12:36.413,0:12:39.134
0:12:39.134,0:12:40.580
0:12:40.580,0:12:47.284
0:12:47.284,0:12:48.788
0:12:48.788,0:12:51.464
0:12:51.464,0:12:55.530
0:12:55.530,0:13:00.346
0:13:00.346,0:13:02.903
0:13:02.903,0:13:09.846
0:13:09.846,0:13:12.239
0:13:15.678,0:13:18.608
0:13:18.608,0:13:24.022
0:13:24.022,0:13:26.377
0:13:26.377,0:13:28.503
0:13:28.503,0:13:32.628
0:13:32.628,0:13:39.347
0:13:39.347,0:13:41.400
0:13:41.400,0:13:44.768
0:13:44.768,0:13:50.910
0:13:50.910,0:13:57.961
0:13:57.961,0:14:02.357
0:14:02.357,0:14:03.518
0:14:03.518,0:14:07.446
0:14:07.446,0:14:11.315
0:14:11.315,0:14:13.883
0:14:13.883,0:14:17.156
0:14:17.156,0:14:20.448
0:14:20.448,0:14:26.682
0:14:26.682,0:14:28.674
0:14:28.674,0:14:34.254
0:14:34.654,0:14:38.854
0:14:38.854,0:14:43.636
0:14:43.636,0:14:51.194
0:14:51.194,0:14:58.568
0:14:58.568,0:15:03.475