Disappeared at Sea: Italy’s complicity in the 11th July Tunisian Interception

12/07/2025

On the evening of the 11th of July, 27 people arrived at the Favaloro pier. The 27 survivors told us about their journey towards Europe. We tried to reconstruct what happened to them, amplifying their testimonies to accuse the violence of the European border regime, which once again led to the death or disappearance of people who tried to defy it.

On Tuesday, the 8th of July, a boat departed from Sfax, Tunisia, with a total of 63 people on board. After two and a half days at sea, the boat ran out of fuel and remained adrift in international waters for around one day. This is where Frontex asset Sparrow2 spotted the group, on the 11th of July at 12:17am CEST, and orbited around them for around one hour.

Frontex asset Sparrow2
Frontex asset Sparrow2

Frontex not only alerted European authorities but also informed the Tunisian coast guard, even though Tunisia can not be considered a port of safety. Numerous testimonies documented the violent treatment of Tunisian authorities towards people on the move, both during and after interceptions, including deportation into the desert.

We can assume that the Frontex alert led to the arrival of the Tunisian Coast Guard on the scene. At the same time, the Italian Coast Guard arrived. The necessity to avoid interception to Tunisia, as to escape its violent reality, led some people to jump into the water and to swim towards the Italian Coast Guard ship. All women and children remained on the boat.

The Tunisian coast guard tried to prevent the people in the water from reaching the Italian Coast Guard vessel, with seriously dangerous manoeuvres.

According to testimonies, three young men drowned in the sea because of these manoeuvres. Other sources report that two more people remain missing. According to these reports, the 33 people who remained on the boat were intercepted and deported to the Algerian desert. Only 27 people managed to reach the Italian Coast Guard vessel swimming and were then disembarked in Lampedusa.

Five people are now dead or missing. This is not an unintentional tragedy as it could have been prevented! Italy is providing Financial and material support to the Tunisian Garde Nationale Maritime. The European agency Frontex is cooperating with Tunisian (and Libyan) authorities.

These deaths, as all other deaths at the border, are the direct result of the violent border regimes that Europe has intentionally created and supported. On the 11th of July, the Italian Coast Guard was not a bystander to a violent pullback, which killed at least three people, but it was directly responsible for that violence. Italian and European border policies directly and indirectly kill people who cross borders every day, at sea and land routes, inside deportation camps and in European streets. By attempting to repress freedom of movement, externalising and outsourcing border control to Libyan and Tunisian authorities, Europe kills and disappears people every single day.

In this specific event, Italian authorities were on site and could have at least prevented this violent pullback from happening.

Tunisia is not a port of safety!

As much as in Europe, in Tunisia, people on the move face terrible conditions, structural racism, criminalisation and no access to any form of protection or a public health system. In particular, in Tunisia many people are forced to live in makeshift camps under olive trees, which are regularly raided and destroyed by local police. Solidarity structures try to resist and build their own hospitals within the camps, but just a few weeks ago, several self-organised hospitals were burnt down.

Some of the young men from Guinea and Mali, who arrived in Lampedusa, spent two years in Tunisia. They told us how dangerous the situation in Tunisia was for them. When we met them at the transfers the day after their arrival, the people who made it to Italy were still in a state of shock from what they had gone through. They told us that they wished they had space and time to rest and recover after this terrible journey. Instead, they were kept in an overcrowded hotspot and transferred less than 24 hours after their arrival on the island, with no chance to rest, nor to receive much needed support after this experience.


We stand against these Europe-made borders, which cause death and violence on a daily basis.

We condemn the (neo)colonial and racist border regime!

We demand freedom of movement for all!



Photo credits: @erykrynski