ZARZIS, Tunisia (AP) — Row after row of gravestones, most of them inscribed with dates but no names, glisten in the Mediterranean sun.
The cemetery in Zarzis is nearly identical to the one Rachid Koraichi envisioned when he sketched out his “Garden of Africa.” It was meant to be the final resting place for hundreds of unknown men, women and children who washed up on the Tunisian coastal city’s shores in recent years.
“It was his duty to create a cemetery with presence and intelligence so that one day families, fathers, mothers, tribes and nations could know that their children are in heaven and have taken their first steps there,” Colaich told The Associated Press.
Zarzis is a port town that is a frequent destination for migrants whose boats get lost in the Mediterranean’s turbulent currents and are heading for Europe. One of the city’s cemeteries is already full of people who died on the journey, and Zarzis residents have refused to let migrants be buried in the local Muslim cemetery.
So Colaich decided the dead needed a dedicated cemetery, and he bought the land in honor of his brother, who drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to emigrate to Europe. “They died in the same water, they died in the same sea, they were drank by the same salt,” Colaich said.
Kolaich’s cemetery, which is planned to accommodate 600 graves, officially opened on June 9 but began accepting bodies in 2019, shortly after he purchased the land. It is already a third full. Kolaich pays for the burials out of his own pocket.
He created a small garden in the middle of the olive grove, dotted with pomegranate trees and fragrant jasmine, interspersed with glazed tiles and winding walkways.
In total, about 600 remains are buried in the two immigrant cemeteries. Only three names remain.
“For too long, humanity has shown helplessness, even indifference, while too many men and women drowned and too many people turned a blind eye,” said Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, who visited the area on June 9 and presented the statue to the cemetery.
Many of the belongings that washed up in Zarzis after the shipwreck are now part of a nearby museum: clothes, toys, scraps of identification – all in all, a reminder of the more than 125,000 lives lost trying to reach Europe over more than two decades.
Museum founder Mohsen Rikhidev is particularly troubled by the shoes that have been worn down by months or years of walking.
“These are the shoes they used to cross the Libyan desert, which was not an easy journey,” he said. “They died at sea in these shoes because they could not get new shoes in wealthy countries.”
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 677 people have died so far this year on central Mediterranean coasts from Libya to Tunisia while trying to reach Europe, a figure that represents a significant increase since the pandemic slowed migration last year despite European efforts to stop them leaving.
___
Hinnant reported from Paris. Bouazza Ben Bouazza contributed from Tunis.
Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
