A Witness Statement from a Ghost Boat Family Member
TO THE ANTIMAFIA DISTRICT DIRECTORATE OF THE PROSECUTOR OFFICE OF BOLOGNA, ITALY
Editor’s note: For safety reasons we have redacted the names and personal details of people mentioned in this document who have not been charged with any crime.
Statement/report on the presence in Bologna and on Italian territory of Eritrean citizen MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, a witness to the disappearance at sea of 244 Eritrean refugees, an event which occurred at an unspecified location between Libya and Italy on June 27, 2014 or in the following days.
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I, the undersigned (name) BIRHANE (surname) ISAYAS born on March 3, 1980 in Asmara (Eritrea), resident in ████, ██████████, domiciled in ████, ██████████ (telephone number ██████████ / ██████████), identified by identity card number █████████ issued by the Municipality of Rome (Comune di Roma) on January 28, 2011 and valid until January 28, 2021, submit the following for your consideration:
• On June 26, 2014 at 11:30 PM local time in Italy, I called the Libyan phone number +████████████ where I wanted to get in touch with my sister █████ █████, 30 years old, my uncle █████ █████, 30 years old, and my cousin █████ █████, 26 years old, whom I knew were located in Libya, in the Tripoli area. I knew the number because I had previously called to talk to my sister several times.
• My sister and my relatives had been in Libya for more than ten days and during the phone call on June 26, 2014, they informed me that in a few hours they would be leaving on a boat for Italy and apply for asylum.
• On June 27, 2014 at 8 AM I called the above phone number, but it was switched off.
• On June 28, 2014, not having heard from my relatives, I called the Libyan phone number +████████████ which I knew belonged to Eritrean citizen MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, 26 years old. I knew the number since Tesfamariam had called me from Libya to inform me that my sister and relatives, who were staying with him, had arrived safe and sound in the Tripoli area, after crossing the desert from Sudan as well as the Libyan conflict zones. My sister then told me that TESFAMARIAM was the supposed contact in Libya for smugglers who take refugees across the desert, as well as the man who supposedly arranged for the sea crossing to Italy. My sister also told me that he collected the sum of 1,600 US dollars per person required for each passenger to get on board.
• During our phone call of June 28, 2014, MEASHO TESFAMARIAM informed me that my sister and relatives had left on a boat for Italy six hours earlier, around 3 AM.
• On June 30, 2014, I still had no news or phone calls from my sister or relatives. At 1:40 PM I received a phone call from the Libyan number of MEASHO TESFAMARIAM (+████████████), who informed me that my relatives had entered Italy and wished me well.
• On July 2, 2014, not having heard from my sister, I called back the Libyan number of MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, who told me to call a Sudanese man, IBRAHIM, the man who had provided the boat. IBRAHIM’s Libyan numbers are +████████████ and +██████████. I asked an Arab-speaking acquaintance to call him, since I do not speak the language myself. IBRAHIM said the boat had arrived in Italy with all passengers, but because there was some hashish on board, they had all been arrested.
• During those days I got in touch with some Eritrean acquaintances living in Switzerland and in Italy, who also had relatives on the boat and who, like me, were very worried because we hadn’t heard from them in a while.
• In our following phone conversations after July 2, 2014, about five calls in all, IBRAHIM kept telling the same story about all the passengers being arrested. Eventually he announced he would be going back to Sudan and from that moment stopped answering his phone.
• Still having no news, on the following days I called back MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, who kept telling me that the boat had already arrived in Italy and all passengers were under arrest in Pozzallo. This turned out to be a lie, as I later learnt from fellow Eritreans who had gone to the identification centre in Pozzallo and had not found their relatives there.
• MEASHO TESFAMARIAM had also told me that the boat carried 243 refugees plus the pilot, a man of Egyptian or Tunisian nationality. Of those passengers, 197 were Eritrean and 46 Sudanese, at least according to what MEASHO TESFAMARIAM told me. In one of our conversations on the phone, TESFAMARIAM dictated to me a list of names of 87 of the 243 passengers who had been on board. I am attaching the list to this statement. Number 1 on the list is my cousin. Number 36 is my sister. There were also many children and at least two pregnant women. The [smugglers] organization known to TESFAMARIAM collected for each passenger 3,200 US dollars (1,600 for the journey across the desert from Sudan to the Libyan coast, and 1,600 for the sea crossing from Libya to Italy), money that had been paid at departure in Sudan.
• For at least 12 days starting from June 28, 2014, MEASHO TESFAMARIAM answered phone calls from me and from other fellow Eritreans in Europe who were in my same situation, with a relative who had been on board that boat. In those conversations, he did not provide any indication about the fate of our relatives.
• Starting from July 13, 2014, MEASHO TESFAMARIAM stopped answering my phone calls. The phone rang normally. So we no longer heard from him, IBRAHIM or our relatives.
• On September 18, 2014, I spoke on the phone to an Eritrean friend of Measho, █████ ██████████, who lives in Israel and whose sister █████ ██████████ was on the missing boat (she was number 60 in the passenger list, and she was pregnant). I know that █████ and MEASHO TESFAMARIAM have known each other since they were children, as they were both born in Sudan and Measho had lived in ██████’s house during his school years in Eritrea, in the city of GULIJ where their families had gone back.
• To my surprise, █████ told me that MEASHO TESFAMARIAM himself crossed the sea on a boat with about 350 people in September, and the boat was rescued by a ship of the Italian navy (Marina Militare), and on September 12, 2014, MEASHO TESFAMARIAM landed with all other refugees in the city of Brindisi, Italy.
• I had confirmation of this on September 18, 2014, when MEASHO TESFAMARIAM called me from his Italian cell phone number ██████████. We were on the phone from 11:00 PM to about 1 AM, with a few interruptions. Measho told me that he was on a train, he had taken the train in Naples to get to Bologna and from there he would take another train to Germany. I asked him again what happened to the boat carrying my sister and relatives. He answered that either they were all dead at sea, or they had been sold to some other smuggler, someone unknown to him, by the Libyan man who had provided the boat. I asked him where he lives and said I wanted to meet him in Bologna. He answered that we could meet because he wanted to speak to me in person. So we agreed to meet the following day, on September 19, 2014, at the station in Bologna, at around 3 PM. We agreed in any case to speak on the phone again in the morning. Two other men are traveling together with MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, one is another Eritrean citizen who left Libya by boat and arrived together with Measho, and the other is citizen of the Ivory Coast. The Eritrean man, Abas, gave me his Italian telephone number: ██████████.
• On September 19, 2014, at 10 in the morning, I called MEASHO TESFAMARIAM at his cell number to confirm our meeting. But his phone was switched off. So I stayed in Milan and at around 3:30 PM I called the Eritrean man, Abas, who had been traveling with MEASHO from Naples to Bologna. Abas, who was actually still with MEASHO, told me that they had already passed the border between Italy and Austria, after taking a train at 11:52 AM from Bologna to Bolzano, where I suppose they continued their journey. I suppose the cameras in the station in Bologna have footage of both as they were leaving. The Eritrean man, Abas, also told me they were going to Germany. He had also told me that he had left Libya with MEASHO and that MEASHO had been the person who had used a satellite phone to call for help during the sea crossing. I am adding this detail because, if it is confirmed, it is likely that Italian rescue authorities have recorded the voice of MEASHO TESFAMARIAM.
• On September 22, 2014 or around that date, I spoke to MEASHO’s friend living in Israel, █████ ██████████, who confirmed that MEASHO TESFAMARIAM arrived in Germany at his brother’s █████ ██████████, and gave me Measho’s brother’s German number, +████████████. He also gave me MEASHO’s new German phone number: +█████████████. If I understand the phonetic spelling correctly, they both reside in the German town of GILEN, about 40 or 90 minutes from Frankfurt.
• Still around that date, I called MEASHO’s brother, █████ ██████████, and asked his help on behalf of all the relatives of the missing passengers, to find out what happened to our dear ones. I explained to him that it was not our intention to quarrel and that we just wanted to talk to MEASHO. Measho’s brother answered saying MEASHO was in Germany but he had not seen him and did not know where he was. He also told me that he would get a friend of MEASHO who may know where he was to call me. But I did not receive any phone calls. I called Measho’s brother █████ ██████████ again a second time between September 25, 2014 and September 30, 2014, but none of my queries were answered. I tried calling him again but he has since stopped answering the phone.
• Measho’s friend living in Israel also pointed me to the Facebook profile page of MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, where he appears under the name of TEKLIT TESFAMARIAM. The address of the page, where you can find several photos of him, is: https://www.facebook.com/measho.adyam?fref=ts
His friend in Israel, ██████ ███████████, confirmed that the man pictured, with a heavy build and wearing a goatee, also pictured in a close-up wearing a yellow t-shirt, and in another photo wearing a blue and red checkered shirt, is indeed MEASHO TESFAMARIAM, whom he has known since their school years.
Other people I know also had relatives on the boat and are now in the same situation as me. They are:
███████ ████████, born on April 20, 1973 in Adi Finie (Eritrea), resident in ████ in ███████████, identified by identity card issued by the Municipality of Rome (Comune di Roma) number █████████, valid until October 17, 2021, telephone number: ██████████.
His relative on the missing boat is his brother █████ ██████████, 39 years old, number 3 on the attached list.
█████ ██████, born in Eritrea, domiciled in ████ in ██████████, telephone number: ██████████.
Her relative on the missing boat is her brother █████ ██████████, 27 year old, number 4 on the list, under the name Abraham Negasi.
█████ ██████████, born on March 1, 1989 in Eritrea, identified by tax identification number (codice fiscale) ███████████, asylum seeker.
His relative on board is his aunt █████ █████, 20 years old, number 18 on the list.
In view of the above
I hereby ask
• whether any of the facts set out above might constitute a criminal offence;
and I especially ask that:
• Mr MEASHO TESFAMARIAM be tracked down by Public Authorities in order to give an explanation of what happened, given the fact that since then we have not heard from our relatives.
I am available at the address and telephone numbers provided in this statement, to help with anything you may need and to put your Authority in touch with the dozens of people residing in Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Canada, United States and Eritrea who had relatives on that boat and who have been desperately waiting for months to know where their relatives are now.
Finally, I also ask:
to be informed of any motion to dismiss the case or any extension of preliminary investigations.
SIGNED BY
Birhane Isayas
