Border Smuggling: Economic Survival on the Tunisia-Libya Frontier
In Ben Guerdane, a town in Tunisia's far southeast straddling the Libyan border, a complex informal economy of cross-border trade and smuggling has sustained communities for generations. This documentary photography project examines how coronavirus restrictions devastated border trade networks, pushing traditional smugglers and traders toward desperate Mediterranean migration routes to Europe.
Before COVID-19, the Tunisia-Libya border sustained thousands of merchants who traded everything from subsidized fuel and electronics to food and medicines through both official crossings and clandestine desert pathways. Ben Guerdane and the Dhehiba crossing in Tataouine governorate formed the economic lifeline for Tunisia's impoverished southeast, where formal employment opportunities remain scarce and border trade provided decent livelihoods for entire communities.
When coronavirus measures closed the borders from March to November 2020, the entire regional economy collapsed overnight. Fuel smugglers like Tarek and Abdelbassat, who once operated bustling diesel stalls, found themselves unemployed for eight months straight. Legal border traders such as Rahdouane Azlouk and Adel Abdelkbir, who previously made three daily trips across the frontier, saw their income devastated by COVID testing requirements and quarantine restrictions.
This investigation, published in Al Jazeera, documents how the pandemic transformed traditional border smuggling networks and accelerated irregular migration from Tunisia to Europe. The project captures the human impact of border closures on communities that depend on informal trade for survival, revealing how economic desperation drives migration across the Mediterranean Sea.
The work examines traders who once earned substantial incomes from smuggling subsidized Libyan goods—fuel, construction materials, medicines, and electronics—now facing impossible choices between economic ruin and dangerous boat journeys to Italian shores. In 2020 alone, more than 12,500 Tunisians attempted irregular migration by boat to Lampedusa, many of them former border traders from Ben Guerdane and surrounding areas.
Through intimate portraits of smugglers, traders, and their families, this documentary project reveals the intersection of public health policy, border security, and economic survival in North Africa. The images capture how communities adapt to crisis, the resilience of informal economies, and the human cost of policies that criminalize survival strategies in marginalized regions.
From shuttered fuel stalls in Ben Guerdane to desert smuggling routes near the Libyan frontier, this work documents a hidden economy that connects Tunisia to broader networks of Mediterranean migration, regional trade, and the impact of global crises on local communities.
Ben Guerdane, Tunisia. 2020-2021.
This investigation was published in Al Jazeera as part of comprehensive reporting on border trade, COVID-19 impacts, and migration in southeast Tunisia.
