The dead and missing along Europe’s migration routes

Linda Caglioni is a contract journalist primarily based in Italy. Her work has been revealed in shops together with Espresso and Il Fatto Quotidiano.

An total sideboard is roofed in images of their missing son, Yasser. In a silver body sits an image of him as a toddler with quick, cropped black curls, his embarrassed smile giving the impression that the digital camera caught him unexpectedly.

I’m in the lounge of the Idrissi household, at their home within the middle of Fes — Morocco’s second-most populous metropolis — the place Yasser’s mom, Haiat, not too long ago spent months arranging her son’s funeral. There is ache on this home. But additionally the braveness to confront it.

In one other image, Yasser protectively rests his hand on his youthful sister’s shoulder in opposition to the backdrop of a nature park, the acerbic options of an adolescent outlining his face. Another exhibits him carrying a ceremonial robe, embracing his father, Noureddine. The recollections unlocked by these photographs are all that’s left for the household to maintain Yasser’s reminiscence alive.

“When I imagined myself old, I used to think that Yasser would care for me and my husband. Organizing the ceremony of farewell to one’s child is something no parent would expect to do. And even if I accept Allah’s will, I will miss him forever,” his mom mentioned.

Haiat speaks with out stopping, tidying the home earlier than kin arrive for her son’s funeral. And though each point out or reminiscence of him requires the painful effort of remembrance, she’s additionally relieved. She’s been ready to bury her son for a really very long time.

Yasser handed away on the so-called “migrant Balkan route” in May 2020 on the age of 27. His physique was present in a river in Croatia, the place his journey to the European Union’s northern international locations was halted. His father came upon about Yasser’s loss of life from Facebook, after one in every of his mates posted: “God have mercy on Yasser’s soul.”

From that second on, the household began a protracted battle to search out out what had occurred to him and to repatriate his physique. After spending two-and-a-half years calling the consulate and filling out paperwork, the Idrissi household lastly repatriated their son’s physique.

But their battle is hardly uncommon.

According to the International Organization for Migration, round 29,000 people misplaced their lives along migration routes to Europe between 2014 and 2021. Despite this, the EU nonetheless doesn’t present an environment friendly help program for these searching for to repatriate the physique of a liked one. Instead, usually, victims’ kin are left to cope with the complicated procedures alone, and the method can take as much as a number of months, generally even years.

Migrant deaths along the Balkan route aren’t any completely different. According to figures offered by UNITED for Intercultural Action — a European community of NGOs that works to help migrants, refugees and minorities — about 2,100 folks died along this route during the last 9 years. And the precise determine could also be greater due to incomplete info.

The absence of official help from worldwide our bodies has thus prompted dozens of volunteers to supply refugee households assist. Bosnian activist Sanela Klepić began volunteering a number of years in the past, and since then, she’s usually discovered her inbox stuffed with messages asking for assist in discovering a missing migrant.

“I cannot have days off,” she mentioned. “Relatives always text me when someone goes missing or may have died. They need confirmation and to know how to get the body back. Sometimes, they cannot speak English and write me in Arabic, even though they know I can’t understand it because they don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

Klepić can also be a member of the Facebook-based activist group “Dead and Missing in the Balkans.” And on the group’s web page, activists, refugees and kin actively share footage or details about those that are misplaced.

Since dropping his son, Nourredine has began aiding different households as properly, utilizing his private expertise to assist others endure the identical nightmare. He calls embassies, gathers details about the missing and tries to wring out higher offers with funeral properties within the international locations the place the deaths happen.

“Many who lost their sons on the Balkan route have never left their villages and speak only Berber,” he mentioned. “They have never sent a document or booked an appointment online. Some of them may choose to give up after yet another unsuccessful call to the embassy — and it’s not right,” the 62-year-old continued.

Nourredine is a fighter. After months of ready due to the pandemic and the rising price of repatriation because of the power disaster, he satisfied the Consulate of Morocco to contribute about €1,500 for the repatriation. A big a part of the fee — round €3,270 — was coated by the Tahara Association, which runs a everlasting fundraising marketing campaign to assist households dwelling in battle or excessive poverty maintain eye-watering repatriation prices.

“When I started receiving confirmation about my son’s death from Croatia, the boys traveling with him kept telling me it wasn’t true, that Yasser was alive, giving me contradictory versions of the facts,” he mentioned. “I was confused and wanted my son to be kept in the morgue, so I could ask for another autopsy. Instead, the Croatian cemetery services buried him without my permission.”

Neither the Croatian nor the Moroccan authorities have investigated to search out out what occurred to Yasser. “My son was an illegal immigrant. His mother and I were always against his choice to migrate illegally. But he never hurt anyone. He had the right to live like any other human being. Now that he is gone, I have the right to find [out] the truth. I will seek it until my last breath,” Noureddine mentioned.

A petition he drew as much as ship to the European Court of Human Rights asking for an investigation into his son’s loss of life gathered over 6,000 signatures in just some days.

But Noureddine’s story is much like a whole bunch of others.

Becky, who can also be Moroccan, misplaced her brother Abdullah in Croatia in 2020, additionally whereas crossing a river — drowning is a number one reason for loss of life on the Balkan route. And due to the Croatian collective Women to Women, Becky was finally in a position to repatriate her brother’s physique three years after his loss of life. “If it weren’t for the volunteers who paid for the funeral services and the repatriation flight, I don’t know how we could have buried Abdullah here in Morocco,” she defined.

“Every case is different. Some repatriations can occur within five days after a death, and others can take months, if not years — even if the identification has already been made. It also depends on the protocol of the country of origin,” mentioned Marijana Hameršak, a researcher on the University of Zagreb. “It’s very significant that there’s no official system to manage these processes. We are the ones who assist the families and act as intermediaries with the local funeral homes. But what will happen when we no longer have the time or the strength to help them?”

Activists have lengthy been pushing for an impartial European physique to help kin. However, in the meanwhile, the chance of this taking place is low. “European states have their advantage in keeping these deaths nameless because if there’s no name, there’s no case. Also, this is why people continue to talk about the disappearances on the Balkan route as if they were accidents,” Hameršak concluded.

The climate, rivers or ravines shouldn’t be seen as the reason for these deaths, she argued. They are the consequence of present migration insurance policies.