Latifa Walhazi (Association of mothers of disappeared migrants in Tunisia) and Hela Kanakane (Watch the Med - Alarmphone) sit down with our project manager Emmy Fu to describe CommemorAction, one of the historically largest movement-building conferences in the SWANA region that brought together international and local collectives to Zarzis, Tunisia. 

As the project was led and designed by mothers and relatives of missing migrants, this article’s title makes a connection to Black US-American scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s description of Californian mothers of imprisoned children who, in “refus[ing] the state’s criminalisation and sacrifice of their loved ones,” increased “the capacity of everyday people to organise and lead themselves” (Abolition Geography 185).

“CommemorAction” blends the grief and ritual of ‘commemoration’ with the mobilisation and strategy of ‘action’. This tradition begun after the Tarajal massacre on February 6, 2014, where at least 15 people were killed when attempting to reach Europe, with dozens missing and others cruelly pushed back. This is far from the first nor the last spectacle of mass killing at the European borders, as EU migration policy has increasingly functioned on the doctrine of deterrence. Migrant justice organisers around the world take up key dates annually, mourning the dead and fighting for the living.  

This interview was lightly edited for clarity, and Latifa’s answers in Arabic were interpreted and translated by Hela.

‍

‍How did you two first meet, and what do you do? 

Hela: It was Latifa’s mother I met first, in an activist gathering on migrant justice in Senegal. Then Latifa and I met at a local protest, and since then we started organizing actions together, not only about missing migrants but also about the rights of Tunisian migrants in Europe, or Tunisian migrants who had been deported from Europe. Often I meet many academics or people who are activists by profession, so it’s always nice to meet local, directly affected people who are involved. 

Latifa: My mother was the president of the association for mothers of missing migrants in Tunisians. Due to her failing health in her elderly age, she couldn’t continue the role anymore and I took over. My brother Ramzi has been missing as a migrant since 2011, and I have another brother in Germany who is constantly in a precarious status, so the issue of freedom of movement is inherited in my family. People forget that there are families left behind, who are forever in a state of uncertainty, instability, of hoping that the person will return into their lives. I will spend all my life looking for my missing brother. 

Hela: I work not only in Tunisia but also Libya. I meet with families, and support them with whatever possible: for example, translation, offering contacts, or hosting local press conferences that advocate for individual cases to be addressed by the state. I answer relatives’ questions about their loved ones through my involvement in Alarmphone, which is an activist-run voluntary hotline that migrants call when in distress on migration routes. Sometimes the most important work is facilitating connections: a family might call me about a case, and then a migrant person might also call later, and we’re able to reconstruct testimonies to confirm that they are looking for each other, and in the best cases, they’ll reunite. 

Latifa: At the association of mothers, we support the community on a bureaucratic level, because this is a huge barrier to people who are grieving or disadvantaged. Most of the missing migrants are male, and when you’re missing the son, brother or father of a family, the women left behind don’t have a stable income anymore. So we advocate for their rights to the state services, making sure that they get access to health care, monthly allowances, collecting donations for their children for education and Eid. We also support their casework, which can be very complex, in looking for their missing loved ones.

‍

Can you summarise the CommemorAction? What made it different than other events you’ve seen or participated in? 

‍Latifa: With a coalition of organizers and groups across countries, we hosted a week of events, and I think it was very successful. It took place 10 years after the shipwreck on September 6, 2012, where a boat of Tunisian migrants were shipwrecked off the coast of Lampione, Italy. 

Hela: CommemorActions visiblise the stories of lives that have been stolen. They have names, and they have loved ones who are still fighting for justice and truth. One of the worst consequences of a harmful European border regime is that thousands of families since 1994 have to deal with this pain. Truly, to me supporting these families must be a central politics of the migrant justice movement. 

We convened friends and families of missing migrants with existing migrant-led initiatives across the region — from Tunisia, Cameroon, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and more. Families normally feel alone, but deterrence of migration is a global structure, and people across the Global South have to endure this same pain. This was an important moment to show how border killings impact all of us, and connect across diverse efforts and life experiences. 

Many NGOs focus on the Central Mediterranean, tending to forget other routes and regions. So it was very intentional and important for us to advocate in the European activist circle for this event in Tunisia, organised and led by the impacted communities on the frontlines. Most of the organisers are in the Global South, it was relatives themselves who did most of the work, deciding what the event should look like, and that type of inclusion and participation is rare. 

The location, Zarzis, made the event more powerful since it’s a significant hub for migration and freedom of movement. We wanted to decenter the capital city, Tunis, to connect to more remote places, where issues are not as visible or accessible. Before 2023, Zarzis as a coastal commune was known for welcoming migrants, mainly from Libya, and it is a common place of departure to Europe. 

‍

How did the project impact the participants and local community? 

Latifa: We wanted to give practical opportunities for people to learn and build their skills together. During the entire planning process, we prioritized that affected people would be able to come, and distributed our funds based on this. We believe it is their learning that must be centered. 

Relatives of missing migrants hear many rumors about what might have happened to their loved ones, and have no tools to know what the truth is. We held workshops about DNA tests, graveyards, legal rights, and more, where we could learn from anthropologists, forensics, and other experts to have proper information. It’s a way of empowering ourselves: to be able to ask the right questions, know what is correct, and discover the truth about our disappeared or dead family members. This also lessens the reliance on the state, so that knowledge can be independently gained as a source of empowerment. 

Hela: Beyond the skill-training and capacity-building, people built relations. For the future, they knew who to contact or collaborate with. And since the economy of Zarzis is based on the fishing and salt industry, we could also connect to the local environmental movement. Long before formal sea rescue initiatives and NGOs, local fishermen would sacrifice their health and jobs to save migrants they saw on their trips out into the sea. Our organising made clear how migrant justice and EU border externalization into third countries like Tunisia is intersectional. Migration is also a climate issue: it impacts entire ecosystems, the local working class, and is relevant to the fight of small environmental workers against large exploitative industries. 

‍Latifa: The fishermen were very supportive — the vessels are theirs, so their support and advocacy for our cause meant we could go on the boats at the end of our protest, and have them lead a small tour. We could experience the same environment that our missing loved ones had been, it was a powerful moment of grief and remembrance.   

What was your favorite moment?

Hela: I was exhausted, so I loved having a soda alone on the beach! But also probably working with the fishermen, because that was really emotional. We had a ceremony to honor their work, and hear what they had to say about their experiences at sea. They know the waters best, it's their life, and it’s a perspective that is often missing.

Latifa: I loved the night times after the event. Our event was in a hostel, where all the relatives who came from other countries also stayed. So when everyone else left, we would put the mattresses outside at night and it would only be families with shared experiences connecting. It didn’t matter if we didn’t know each other’s language, we would always find someone to translate. We talked to each other very late into the night about anything and everything.

Before the CommemorAction, I invited the organizing team to my house and cooked them Kafteji, a traditional Tunisian dish of fried vegetables, and this was really nice. We had a big dinner together before the week started, and despite being stressed, we just laughed all night.

‍

What do you want European funders and activists to know?

Latifa: At the beginning of this project, I asked one of the European organizers, “What do you want us to do?”, and she answered: “No, it’s you, it’s the families — we will just execute what you need.” I will never forget that, and it made me respect European comrades in this project a lot. In the NGO and funders’ world, you often need to do a project that meets their ideas and framework, and then just show up in pictures. You’re a face, but not leading or having an active voice. This CommemorAction took a very different framework.

Hela: There’s still a lack of attention around the topic of families of missing migrants, creating a ‘border’ between the impacted people and the European organisers despite our shared goals. Of course, logistically it can make sense that a lot of our resources go towards migrants who are currently on the move, to support their dignity and safety. But collecting testimonies, knowing who is missing, and maintaining relations with the families left behind is extremely necessary and helpful work to understand the entire system of oppression. We really have to connect with people in the Global South not only as diverse faces in photos, but through genuine relationships.

In the Global South, funding is typically restricted to very large NGOs and international bodies. These are important resources, but because of their institutionalisation, they can also restrict the autonomy of the grassroots movements. Increasing diverse, flexible and trust-based funding possibilities would allow people to connect, skill-share and grow capacities led by their needs, and build the migrant justice movement across borders and from the bottom-up.

‍

Further Resources:

• Association des mères de migrants disparus
• Watch the Med - Alarmphone and Alarm Phone Sahara
• Article on the origins of CommemorActions in the migrant justice movement
• “Forced to Disappear - An Introduction” by Filippo Furri and Hela Kanakane (2023) in Echoes magazine, hosted by Civil Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre ‍
• “Mothers Reclaiming Our Children,” chapter in Abolition Geography (2022) by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

‍