Families mourn as bodies of illegal migrants return - dpa

By Pakinam Amer, dpa
First Published: 13 November, 2007

Cairo - The first signs of winter chilled Reda Attiya‘s bones as she sat huddled between her sons at the Cairo airport awaiting the casket containing the body of her nephew.

Tarek Abdel-Nabi Attiya was one of 22 illegal would-be immigrants from Egypt who drowned off the shores of Syracuse in Sicily when the boat in which they were being transported capsized last week.

Over 125 people are still missing. Search efforts are still underway, monitored by a special operations unit at the Egyptian embassy in Rome.

The ages of the missing and drowned range from 13 to mid-20s. They had attempted to travel over 1,500 kilometres of water on two fishing vessels, their boats capsized. Eleven are known to have drowned off Syracuse while there have been contradicting reports as to where a second boat sank.

The grieving woman waited eight hours for the plane bringing home the victims to arrive in the early morning hours Monday.

"His voice was choked by tears," she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, recounting the frantic last phone call her family received from her 24-year-old nephew.

Attiya was one of more than 100 Egyptians who had turned to a people- trafficking network that smuggles young men who are desperate for work opportunities to Italy.

He and his travel mates were stranded across the Mediterranean aboard a fishing boat where Attiya‘s life was being threatened by "crime cell members," facilitators of the illegal trip, she said.

The middle-aged woman whose face was worn by weeping, told dpa that Attiya had said he had had to pay 30,000 Egyptian pounds (5,400dollars) to facilitators "or else they will slit my throat."

Initially, she said, "we didn‘t know what to do."

"Like mad people, we went to our neighbours and relatives. We borrowed money. We sold land. We sold our livestock - the only source of living we had," said Attiya‘s son, Samir.

Samir, who did not disclose his last name, said his cousin had already paid the facilitators 5,000 Egyptian pounds before leaving for Italy via the port of Alexandria. He was supposed to pay them more money, but only if he found work.

"But they are cheaters. They took the money and gave us a corpse," said Samir.

Attiya‘s family refuse to believe that he merely drowned. They claim he was killed and thrown overboard and have called on the government to investigate the event by questioning the one person who survived the tragedy.

Reda Mohie Mohammed Khattab, a friend of Attiya, is currently being treated at the Italian Red Cross hospital.

"He‘s the only survivor, he knows what happened on this boat. He knows if our son was killed or drowned," said the soft-spoken woman. Khattab reportedly called Attiya‘s family from the hospital with"horror stories" of what happened on the boat.

Whether through Libya or Alexandria, on boat or by air, many poor young Egyptians in their early 20s have considered the idea of fleeing the country to work elsewhere.

Adel, a peasant from Fayyum who lost a family member, said people from his village will continue to "plunge into the unknown," seeping into European lands even if the possibility of death hovers.

"As long as they cannot put food on their tables, young people will risk their lives and money savings," he said. "This tragedy is the responsibility of the government. The people have no choice."

"Most of these youths did their duty towards their country. They served in the army and then went to their doom as their country watched," said Samir.

"It‘s a personal and financial ruin," one relative said.

Attempts at entering Italy illegally are always fraught with danger. Illegal migrants are usually asked to leave the boat off the coast of Italy, and swim the rest of the distance of around 10 kilometres, according to some claims.

And the scenario is not always the same, as some men reach the shore, while others drown or end up being killed in rows on the boats.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur