Survivors-at-home and the right to know: solidarities in Eritrea in the aftermath of the Lampedusa tragedy

ABSTRACT

This study delves into the transnational mobility of migrants from the Horn of Africa, exploring the limited situated ethnographies on survivors-at-home, a topic still underexplored. Focusing on the tragic sinking of a boat carrying Eritreans from Libya to Italy on 3 October 2013 in Lampedusa, the article contextualises the event within a relevant chronology. It examines the post-tragedy solidarities emerging at local, national, and international levels, shedding light on the survivors-at-home’s right to know. Through fieldwork conducted in Eritrea and Italy between November 2012 and September 2016, employing participant observation and microhistory, the study shows nuanced narratives about survivors-at-home, emphasising the challenges they face in exercising their right to know. The transnational and transcalar lens captures the agency, priorities, and practices of various actors and networks involved, providing a comprehensive understanding of the solidarities emerged in the aftermath of the Lampedusa tragedy.

KEYWORDS:

• Eritrea
• Lampedusa
• right to know
• solidarity
• survivors-at-home

Acknowledgements

I owe my thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments and insights. Additionally, I am grateful to those who shared their experiences in the aftermath of Lampedusa tragedy in 2013 and in the subsequent years.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Van Reisen et al., Roaming Africa; Nshimbi and Moyo, Borders, Mobility, Regional Integration; Schmidt, Kimathi and Owiso (eds.), Refugees and Forced Migration.

2 Triandafyllidou and Maroukis, Migrant Smuggling; Frouws et al., Going West.

3 Palladino and Woolley, “Migration, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Salvation”; Grotti and Brightman, Migrant Hospitalities in the Mediterranean.

4 See Ciabarri and Simonsen, “Fragments of solidarity,” in this issue.

5 Plaut, Understanding Eritrea; Tronvoll and Mekonnen, The African Garrison State; Treiber and Hepner, “The Immediate, the Exceptional and the Historical.”

6 Belloni, “Refugees as Gamblers”; Costantini and Massa, “‘So, Now I Am Eritrean’”; Tekalign Ayalew Mengiste, “Precarious Mobility.”

7 Wheatley and Gomberg-Muñoz, “Keep Moving,” 406. See also, Hung, “Amongst Agaish,” in this issue.

8 Kibreab, “Resistance, Displacement, and Identity”; Arnone, “Journeys to Exile”; Thiollet, “Refugees and Migrants from Eritrea”; Kifleyesus, “Women Who Migrate, Men Who Wait”; Zaccaria, “Migration from the Horn of Africa.”

9 Cooper, “Gatekeeping Practices.”

10 Ong, Flexible Citizenship.

11 Yaron, Hashimshony-Yaffe, and Campbell, “‘Infiltrators’ or Refugees?”

12 Jacobsen, Robinson, and Lijnders, Ransom, Collaborators, Corruption.

13 Andersson, “Time and the Migrant Other”; Albahari, “From Right to Permission”; Moreno-Lax, “The EU Humanitarian Border and the Securitization of Human Rights”; see also, Morone, “The cycle of migrants’ containment,” in this issue.

14 Herzfeld, “Mere Symbols.”

15 Cuttitta, “La ‘frontiérisation’ de Lampedusa”; Guenebeaud and Lendaro, “Mettre le feu aux poudres ou passer inaperçu?”

16 Dines, Montagna, and Ruggiero, “Thinking Lampedusa”; Mazzara, “Subverting the Narrative of the Lampedusa Borderscape”; Smits and Karagianni, “The Shaping of the EU’s Migration Policy.”

17 Anderson, “Fugitive Borders.”

18 Proclamation 82/1995 introduced the national service for all Eritrean adults in the regardless of family responsibility or gender, with the sole exclusion of the veterans of the independence struggle and the physically or mentally impaired. In May 2002, the introduction of the Warsai Ykealo Development Campaign extended indefinitely the national service, mobilising the Eritrean population for the socioeconomic development of the country. Kibreab, “The National Service/Warsai-Yikealo Development Campaign”; Kibreab, The Eritrean National Service.

19 Riggan, “Imagining Emigration.”

20 Hepner, “Generation Nationalism and Generation Asylum.”

21 Tekalign Ayalew Mengiste, “Refugee Protections from Below.”

22 Tesfay, personal communication, Tәkonda, 13 December 2012.

23 Fikreyesus, personal communication, Sägänäyti, 22 November 2012.

24 Fieldnotes, February 2013.

25 Simon Tesfamariam, “The Eritrean Coup that Never Was.”

26 On 31 July 2001, during the graduation ceremony, Semere Kesete Negasi criticised the compulsory nature of the government’s summer work programme, condemned the inadequate facilities and the government’s interference at the Asmära University. Following protests were staged by students, which led to the closure of Asmära University and to the detention of around 2,000 students. The so-called ‘G-15’, instead, is a group of fifteen founding members of People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, namely the ruling party. In May 2001, they signed an open letter criticising President Isaias Afewerki for ruling in an ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ manner and calling on him to institute democratic reforms. As a result, eleven were imprisoned, three were living in the Unites States and one recanted and joined again the government.

27 Kuschminder and Triandafyllidou, “Smuggling, Trafficking, and Extortion.”

28 Fieldnotes, Asmära and ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ, October 2013.

29 For the official communication in English see https://shabait.com/2013/10/09/press-statement-by-the-government-of-eritrea/ (last access 13 May 2021) then reported in Eritrea Profile 20(65), 12 October 2013, available at http://50.7.16.234/eritrea-profile/eritrea_profile_12102013.pdf (last access 13 May 2021).

30 Respectively available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSGitWXi8w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3UaiYvGRMU (last accessed 13 May 2021).

31 Fieldnotes, ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ, October 2013.

32 Ali, personal communication, ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ, 8 October 2013.

33 Rosoni and Chelati Dirar, Votare con i piedi.

34 Solomon, personal communication, ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ, 28 October 2013.

35 Full chronicle available at http://awate.com/lampedusa-and-the-eritrean-journey-for-dignity/ (last access 15 May 2021).

36 Sabar and Rotbard, “Eritrean Asylum Seekers’ Lament Ceremonies,” 160.

37 For the full interview to Yemane Gebreab see: https://www.voanews.com/africa/lampedusa-boat-tragedy-crime-against-eritrea-says-official (last accessed 13 May 2021).

38 In 2009, the United Unions Security Council imposed a range of sanctions on Eritrea that drove the ‘UN-Just Sanctions Campaign’ in Eritrea and its diaspora. Sanctions were lifted four months after the signature of the peace agreement with Ethiopia in July 2018. See also Hirt, “The Eritrean Diaspora and Its Impact on Regime Stability.”

39 See note 37.

40 Ibid.

41 Eyob, personal communication, Asmära, 31 October 2013.

42 Fieldnotes, Asmära, October 2013.

43 For the Eritrean authorities’ claims see Eritrea Profile 20(67): 1, 19 October 2013; Eritrea Profile 20(68): 1, 23 October 2013.

44 Mogos, Diario di un esule eritreo tornato in patria, 178.

45 Ibid.

46 Cattaneo and D’Amico, I diritti annegati; Cattaneo, Naufraghi senza volto.

47 Mazzarelli et al., “Ambiguous Loss in the Current Migration Crisis.”

48 Comaroff, “Beyond Bare Life.”

49 Salerno, “Stragi del mare e politiche del lutto sul confine mediterraneo.”

50 For images about das hazen in Asmära for people drown in Lampedusa see: https://eritrealive.com/eritrea-asmara-piange-i-morti-di-lampedusa/ (last access 13 May 2021). For a description of different funeral rituals and solidarities in mourning time in the highlands and in the different ethnic or religious communities see Tronvoll, Mai Weini, 70; and https://shabait.com/2019/11/13/death-and-mourning-in-the-tigrigna-ethnic-group/ (last access 13 May 2021). For mourning rituals in diasporic communities see Sabar and Rotbard, “Eritrean Asylum Seekers’ Lament Ceremonies”.

51 Mail communication, 8 March 2014.

52 Costantini, “Quando sono partito io”; Bozzini, “The Fines and the Spies.”

53 For the internationally accepted procedure see International Committee of the Red Cross, Guiding Principles / Model Law on the Missing, Article 23 – Unidentified dead.

54 Mail communication, 13 March 2014.

55 Ibid.

56 Yonas, personal communication, Asmära, 27 March 2014.

57 Ibid.

58 Communities living in the Eritrean highlands revolved around the Ǝnda, a large patrilineal kinship group whose members varied in number but could all claim common ancestry. Vertical and horizontal relationships, namely among spouses, children, and parents, and siblings, are usually referred as ስድራ ቤት (sәdra beit), which reminds to family as a community of acceptance and belonging.

59 For the definition of ‘relative of a missing person’ see the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Guiding Principles / Model Law on the Missing, art. 2 available at https://www.icrc.org/en/document/guiding-principles-model-law-missing-model-law (last accessed 3 January 2024). For reshaped transnational family ties among Eritrean refugees during mobility see Massa, “Families at a distance, distances within families.”

60 Hani, ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ, 25 March 2014.

61 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W0Nwy5u3k (last access 5 January 2022).

62 Negash and Weldemichael, African Liberation Theology; Makeda Saba, “Where Is Your Brother?”

63 Belloni, “Remittance Houses and Transnational Citizenship,” 72. Fieldnotes, ‘Addi Qäyyəḥ and Asmära, March-April 2014.

64 Decree 45/2016.

65 Hepner, Soldiers, Martyrs, Traitors, and Exiles; Bernal, Nation as Network.

66 Conrad, “A Culture of War and a Culture of Exile.”

67 Riggan, “Imagining Emigration.”

68 Schapendonk, “Turbulent Trajectories.”

69 Efrem, personal communication, Mineo, 25 September 2016.

70 Simon, personal communication, Mineo, 25 September 2016.

71 See Evan Williams (dir.), Escaping Eritrea, available at https://www.ket.org/program/frontline/escaping-eritrea/ (last access 23 December 2021).

72 Dal Zotto, “Pratiche di identificazione e traiettorie dei migranti”; Grimaldi, “Tra sbarco e approdo,” 237.

73 Efrem, personal communication, Mineo, 25 September 2016.

74 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrs3Bcm59Vo (last access 5 January 2022).

75 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KpRQd5Hekw (last access 5 January 2022).

76 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnsaaKMGYCo (last access 5 January 2022).

77 Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiC2HqQP43U&t=23s (last access 5 January 2022).

78 Available at https://www.archiviomemoriemigranti.net/film/co-produzioni/asmat-nomi/ (last access 5 January 2022).

79 Gatta, “Tracce alla deriva.”

80 Horsti and Neumann, “Memorializing Mass Deaths at the Border.”

81 Malighetti, “Transazioni, solidarietà ed umanitarismo.”