How Zohra and Hamza came back home
A Spanish undertaker identifies dead migrants who wash up on the beaches of Spain and brings them back to their families. We set off in Martín Zamora’s hearse, with two coffins in the back.
Zohra Sarrouj (27) and Hamza el Orfi (20) had never seen each other before they found themselves on the same small boat, along with 24 others, making the crossing from Morocco to Spain. Zohra and Hamza were the only ones not to survive the journey; she died of hypothermia, while he fell out close to the Spanish coast and drowned.
Zohra and Hamza now lie next to each in shiny wooden coffins in the back of a hearse belonging to undertaker Martín Zamora. Today Zamora, a fifty-something giant of a man with straight grey hair in a central parting, is taking the bodies of the two young Moroccans from the Spanish port of Algeciras back to their home towns.
The undertaker, dressed in jeans and a blue polo shirt, is getting ready for a long day that will end deep in the heart of Morocco. A chain smoker for many years, Zamora has only recently stopped; throughout the day he will repeatedly say ‘now would be a good time for a cigarette’.
The 58-year old has made this journey many times before, but this time it won’t quite be business as usual. ‘It might sound strange, but these people have almost become my children’, he explains on the run-down industrial estate where he has set up shop. ‘I’ve grown to know them quite intimately. They on the other hand will never know who I am’.
Zohra Sarrouj and Hamza el Orfi are two of the thousands of migrants who have died on the crossing from Africa to Europe. Their deaths were hardly news: according to the International Organisation for Migration, approximately two-hundred migrants have died en route to Spain this year, disappearing unseen into the mass grave that is the Strait of Gibraltar.
Initially the bodies of Sarrouj and El Orfi were unidentified. That was until Zamora brought his team on board and managed to find out their names and ages. After that, using photos from when they still dreamed of a better future, he was able to piece together their life stories. He stored their bodies in a cold room at the rear of his shop and tried to arrange everything in order to be able to take the two of them back. Back to their families. Back home.
Pay up first
It is still early in the morning but the sun is shining brightly. Zamora welcomes Abdenbi Fennan, Hamza el Orfi’s 45-year-old brother -in-law, into his office. The two of them have been in contact for weeks to determine when Hamza’s body will be brought back to Morocco.
‘I’ve grown savvy in this profession through trial and error’, Zamora explained to me outside, the noise of the traffic along the A7 roaring past us in the background. He had let Fennan know over the phone that the trip would only start after the sum of €2500 had been paid. ‘Relatives want nothing more than to bury their loved one in their own country’, said the undertaker. ‘But that costs money, which sometimes they just don’t have. If I sent them an invoice after the trip was over, I wouldn’t see a penny of that money’.
Name on the casket
After days of half-hearted promises, Fennan has finally taken the bus from Murcia, where he has been living as a fruit picker for two years. He wears a light-blue jacket emblazoned with an FC Barcelona logo. All he has with him is a rucksack. Once assurances have been given and the Zohra family appears to have paid, Zamora and Fennan embrace with a gentle pat on the back. Together they look at the coffin on the left-hand side of the van, where Hamza’s full name is written in black letters. Zamora then slams the boots of his Mercedes shut. ‘¡Vámonos!’
Fifteen minutes later they reach at the port of Algeciras, waiting in the queue with the tourists for the crossing over the Mediterranean Sea to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Restless children play games among the tightly packed cars which have number plates from all over Europe. Police officers patrol with dogs. In the background, the towering cranes of Algeciras are hard at work. All of a sudden the port staff start directing vehicles towards the open ramp of the ferry. The grey hearse is barely noticeable
‘Although it’s sad, I’m very happy that I’m able to take my brother-in-law’s body back’, says Fennan in a mixture of Spanish and Italian as he steps out of the car onto the deck of the ferry. ‘The family will only find peace once Hamza is buried.”
Number in a pocket
Martín Zamora’s specialism came about by accident. In 1996 he was a junior undertaker when sixteen Moroccans drowned just off the coast. ‘At the time my company offered a kind of on-call service’, he remembers. ‘The disaster was unforeseeable. Nobody knew what to do with all the dead bodies. It seemed clear they were all going to be buried as unknowns. It was then I decided to see if I could find out any information about their backgrounds’.
Zamora found a phone number in the trouser pocket of the one of the migrants. ‘I called the number. At first they said they didn’t know anything, probably out of fear. A few days later I got a call from a cousin of one of the victims, asking whether I could bring their relative back to Morocco. And I did just that’.
Zamora did not just take back the bodies; he also loaded the clothes and personal items of the other victims into the back of his car and drove around the local villages. ‘Shirts, trousers, shoes...we hung everything up on racks. And it worked. People recognised their loved one’s clothing. It turned out almost all the victims came from the village of Hansala. In the end we managed to identify almost everyone’.
According to Zamora, the people of Hansala were so grieved ‘yet so thankful at the same time. We later brought back the remaining bodies. The reactions were more intense than on the first trip. But it also brought them some peace. Muslims believe that the dead can only make the passage to eternal life once they have been buried according to certain rites’.
The Spanish director Chus Gutiérrez documented these events. Her film, Retorno a Hansala (Return to Hansala, 2008), gave Martín Zamora some minor recognition.
It was then he decided to specialise in dead migrants. On the one hand, he acts out of kindness; he cares for ‘his’ dead. But on the other, as the film showed, he is also a businessman who ‘peddles’ bodies. ‘It’s a difficult balancing act, but that’s the way is has to be’, he explains in the passenger area of the ferry to Ceuta. ‘In practice everyone wants to get rid of these bodies rather than get rich off them. If the Spanish police find them, they’re not inclined to trace any relatives. That’s where I come in, and in almost every case I manage to find someone. Once I have established someone’s identity, I get in touch with their family and then we work together to try to identify the body. After that we begin the process of releasing the body, which can take some time.’
A brief millionaire
Zamora made good use of his specialization in 2003 when, after a disaster near the Spanish coastal town of Rota, he was ordered by a judge to store dozens of bodies at his then business in Los Barrios. After that, no one really took much interest in these dead migrants. Yet a few years later, Zamora was bringing in hundreds of thousands of euro to the Andalusian economy. For a brief time Zamora was a millionaire, a fact that he now laughs about. ‘With my court order in hand, I was charging €60 per person per day. The local authorities soon learned their lesson however ’, he says with a grin. ‘Now unidentified bodies are kept in a municipal cool room and buried as quickly as possible. It’s not been a lucrative business for some time now’.
Zamora is no longer a millionaire; during the economic crisis he was forced to sell his business, as ‘it wasn’t paying the mortgage’. He and his wife went to Brazil. ‘There are dead bodies a-plenty there, but as a foreigner you just don’t come across any’. Failed projects caused him to lose almost all of his assets.
The warehouse for his new company, Southern Funeral Assistance, at the industrial estate in Algeciras marks a new start for Zamora. ‘We still need a bit more money coming in, but the gratitude of the families makes up for it. I wouldn’t know what else to do. It’s become my career’.
Zamora is alone in providing funeral services for anonymous bodies from another continent, despite this being an issue in the south Spain for over four decades. The first body of a Moroccan migrant was on a beach at Tarifa on 1st November 1988 and was buried in a municipal mass grave along with several others.
‘Right now, migration is perhaps the most important topic in Europe today. This discussion however always concerns living migrants; there are barely any protocols for the dead’, Zamora tells me. ‘In my job I always have to work in the margins, making use of my knowledge and contacts. I more or less know how everything works in Morocco now. But there are also migrants from countries like Senegal, Mali or Niger. That’s where it gets a little more complicated. If everything has to be done by the book and follow bureaucratic channels, sometimes it can take years before we can take someone back’.
The bodies of Zohra Sarrouj and Hamza el Orfi were found close to the town of Conil de la Frontera. Sarrouj was lying dead in the boat they had crossed over on; El Orfi washed up a few days later.
The Guardia Civil has kept a number of the survivors detained for questioning. One of them provides a number for a relative of Zohra Sarrouj, and Hamza el Orfi’s ID card was found on his person. Zamora quickly gets hold of these details via his network and connections at the police and begins digging further.
He comes into contact with Najib Sarrouj, Zohra’s older brother. He has to tell him the news, which is no easy task, although he has to do it broken French. Photos are exchanged among her relatives and they quickly come to the conclusion that the remains are of 27-year old Zohra.
A few days later, in his local mosque in the Spanish town of Mula , Abdenbi Fennan finds a photo of Hamza el Orfi, whose body was found seven kilometres from where the boat came ashore. According to Fennan, ‘the imam passed round pictures of the two Moroccans who had died. To my surprise, I immediately recognised my sister’s husband. He would have been on his way to see me. I knew nothing about it’.
Zamora therefore had the names of the two migrants, but this was not enough for the local judge to be able to release them. Official fingerprints from Morocco had to be provided to the Andalusian authorities, a process that would take weeks, if not months. The case seemed to have been left to stagnate until a new, younger judge spoke to Zamora and gave him the green light. ‘You have to pull on people’s heartstrings a little’, explains Zamora on board the ferry. ‘Get them to imagine what they would do if it was their own children’.
Looking out over the railings, with the Rock of Gibraltar in view, Abdenbi Fennan tells me about 1995, when he made that very same journey from Morocco to Spain at the age of 20.
‘It was a different time, but just like many of these migrants today, I didn’t see any future in my own country. We left Tangiers for Tarifa in a wooden boat. This was the shortest route. 15 kilometres or so. The journey was rather smooth actually’, he says as the shores of Africa looms in the distance. ‘Nowadays it’s very different. The whole of the Strait of Gibraltar is being carefully observed with cameras. Whenever a boat leaves Morocco, they’re immediately watching it in Spain .That’ll be why my brother-in-law decided to choose a different route ‘.
Fennan shudders at the thought that he may have set an example for his sister’s husband, just as countless other young Moroccans dream of Europe. ‘From what my sister told me, I was under the impression that Hamza had left in order to avoid military service. He’d already received his call-up papers, but obviously he wasn’t up for it. Life in Europe isn’t as rosy as many people think however. Take me for example. I’ve been wandering for 24 years now, and counting. I’ve worked everywhere, first in Spain, then twenty years in Italy. Now I’m back picking fruit in Murcia. Very tough work for not much money’.
After all these years working, Fennan has finally managed to obtain the paperwork to bring over his family. It is bittersweet, he admits, but thanks to this journey back to Morocco with the body of his brother-in-law, he will be able to collect his wife and children and take them back with him to Spain. ‘I can’t guarantee them a stable existence however. It’s better to not too think too far ahead’.
Single mother
An hour later Zamora and Fennan arrive in Ceuta. They drive through the exclave, heading straight for the border with Morocco. Here the prosperity of Europe ends and North Africa begins. Well-maintained roads turn into dirt tracks strewn with rubbish. Stray dogs lie stretched out in the sun. The Mercedes navigates the endless number taxis, through all the honking, shouting and begging.
Martín Zamora gets calculating. They have lost three hours through dealing with all the formalities. They will really have to put their foot down to get to Sidi Abdelkrim, the village 90 minutes from Casablanca where Zohra Sarrouj’s family is waiting for her return, before sunset .A single mother of a six-year-old daughter; Zohra left because she saw no future in rural Morocco. Her plan was to bring her daughter over to Spain later.
After an hour travelling along the toll road from Tangiers to Casablanca, Zamora’s hearse goes through Larache, an ancient port city surrounded by salt pans and marshland, It was from here at the start of May that the group of Moroccans began their crossing to Europe.
In 2018, around 60,000 migrants from all different parts of Africa followed this route before them, of whom approximately 800 died en route.
Vastly improved cooperation between Moroccan and Spanish authorities has made Europe much more difficult to reach. Departing migrant boats are picked up by the Moroccan Coast Guard on an almost daily basis. Those who really want a good chance at making the crossing need to save money and be willing to take risks. Sarrouj and El Orfi were among them: they would have paid €2500 to middlemen, three of whom travelled with them and survived the journey. Almost as soon as they set foot in Spain, they were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking.
Off to the police station
During the long drive, Morocco in all its guises passes by; from the hyper-modern University of Rabat to the slums on the outskirts of Casablanca, from landscapes containing cactuses and donkeys to fields under breathtakingly beautiful skies. The village of Sidi Abdelkrim only looms into view as evening draws near.
Zamora has arranged to meet Zohra’s brother Najib Sarrouj, a smartly dressed man in his forties, at the abandoned petrol station on the outskirts of the village. From there Zamora follows Sarrouj’s car to the local police station: here the final administrative tasks need to be carried out, after which the small procession of cars leaves for a remote dwelling outside Sidi Abdelkrim.
Donkeys roam the landscape; everywhere the sound of bleating sheep. Dust fills the air as the Mercedes drives down a dirt path towards Zohra Sarrouj’s childhood home, where there is a large white tent, filled with people.
Dozens of women and girls are waiting there, for hours, it turns out. Overcome with emotion, they bring in the hearse. Some stand staring straight ahead, their hands covering their mouths; others burst into tears. When Zamora opens the boot of the hearse, a bone-chilling scream rises through the air. The victim’s mother nearly collapses. Small children hide behind the clothes of their crying mothers. Zohra’s own daughter stays in the background. It is unclear whether she understands what’s going on.
She is not allowed to attend the funeral. Less than ten minutes later, the women remain overcome with grief as Zamora drives away with the coffin to the rocky town cemetery a few kilometres away. There the men are busy digging the grave, surrounded by the plots where a few dozen fellow villagers lie buried in this bare, yellow landscape.
Zamora parks his Mercedes almost exactly next to the narrow pit in the ground and greets Mohamed ben Bouazza, Zohra’s father, in a restrained manner. They communicate with each other using their hands and feet. The man, dressed in a grey jumper and dark coat, nods amicably to the foreign visitors. He has to hold back his emotions.
A serene calm reigns. The silence is broken by the loudspeaker from the mosque a little further along the road. The coffin is placed on the ground and the group of men arrange themselves in rows to join with Zohra’s father in collective prayer.
In the background, two Moroccan men in distinctive clothing are taking photos of Zamora’s accompanying Spanish photographer with their phones. Nobody seems particularly surprised, as the regime of King Mohammed VI has eyes and ears everywhere in Morocco, even at a young woman’s funeral.
The sun is still yet to set as Zohra’s coffin is lowered down by several male hands into her final resting place, her head facing towards Mecca. It takes a while for the coffin to properly sink and settle. Then the hole is quickly closed with shovels filled with sand and stone. A last streak of daylight falls on the top of the casket, as the words of the lilting prayers fade away.
Zamora is standing a little further along, alone. Without a cigarette in hand, he is finding it difficult to know what to do with himself. ‘I have seven children of my own. There’s nothing worse than having to bury your child’, he says a little later, smoothing down his grey hair. ‘She was so young and had her whole life ahead of her. Now I’m bringing her back in a coffin for her daughter to see. I’ve looked after her as best I could. Made her up nice, laid her out and brought her home. There was nothing more I could do ‘.
Back on the ferry
As evening falls over Morocco, Zamora and Fennan bid their farewells to the family of Zohra Sarrouj and head off to take the coffin to its final destination. The funeral of Hamza is planned for just after dawn in the village of Fkih Ben Saleh, 100km away. There the same rituals will take place. Barely 24 hours after meeting him for the first time, Zamora is now stood at the funeral of Fennan’s brother-in-law. A few days later, Fennan will bring his family over to Europe. Not in a rickety old boat this time however, but legally, on the ferry.
After a final embrace with Fennan, Martín Zamora gets back in his hearse. He will drive back alone, his vehicle empty, en route to Algeciras, where more unidentified bodies are already waiting for him.
MIGRATION FIGURES
BODIES WASHING UP SINCE 1988
On 1st November 1988, the body of a Moroccan man washed up on the beach at Tarifa. His body, together with those of other drowned migrants, lies buried in a mass grave in the town cemetery. He is considered to be the first Moroccan who did not survive the crossing to Europe as an illegal immigrant.
According to an estimate by the Association for Human Rights of Andalusia, approximately eight thousand migrants have died trying to cross the sea from Morocco to Spain. In recent years, figures have been recorded much more accurately. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 811 died on this route in 2018. This year around two hundred migrants did not make it to the other side.
