A decade on from the Sousse massacre, Tunisia deserves a second chance

Telegraph

3 days ago

It was an incident, so sudden and shocking, that you can probably remember where you were when you saw or read the newsflash. June 26 2015, exactly 10 years ago today.
The afternoon when death stalked the Mediterranean shore below a bright North African sky.
Even if you cannot recall your exact whereabouts on that awful Friday, you will surely recall what happened. At around noon, having mingled with holidaymakers on the sand at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel – in the Port El Kantaoui tourist area, just outside the Tunisian city of Sousse – Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi pulled a concealed assault rifle from a beach umbrella, and opened fire.
By the time he was himself killed by hotel security, having headed into the property on a hunt for further targets, he had murdered 38 people.
The attack has a particular and lingering resonance in this country – because 30 of those 38 victims were British. Sun-seekers from Wolverhampton and Blackpool, from Wiltshire and Cornwall, from Suffolk and Leicester, from Tyne and Wear, Yorkshire and Perthshire.
A decade later, its echoes continue to ring out. Take a glance at the aviation route map, and you will notice a gap – no airline, British or otherwise, currently flies directly from the UK to Monastir Habib Bourguiba International, the main airport serving the Sousse area.
Tui, the tour operator with whom many of the 2015 deceased had been travelling, now suggests nine resort options in what is Tunisia's third biggest city – but none of them is the former Riu Imperial Marhaba, which changed its name to 'Kantaoui Bay' in 2017.
Nor has British outbound tourism to Tunisia entirely recovered. Half a million UK holidaymakers flew to the country in 2014, before the atrocity.
And while the number for 2024 was greater than the inevitable statistic of zero, tallied in the two years after the attack – when the Foreign Office had issued a strict warning against British citizens visiting Tunisia – it still amounts to barely more than half the high tide-mark recorded 11 years ago.
In total, around 278,000 of us holidayed in North Africa's smallest country last year, a small rise on the 239,000 of 2023.
In other words, Yacoubi's radicalised brutality, allied to the twisted vision of Islamic State, achieved some of its aims: to smear Tunisia's image as a reliable destination for Western holidaymakers, and to cause significant damage to a tourism industry which accounts for about 10 per cent of the country's GDP – as well as more than 400,000 jobs.
The events of that June lunchtime were a tragedy on several levels. I have been to Tunisia twice since, and have only ever encountered a country which feels welcoming, friendly and – above all – safe.
I also found – on my first trip, in the autumn of 2017, when the Foreign Office advice against visiting the country had just been lifted – a place straining under a set of debilitating after-effects. The restaurants in Sousse were all but empty in what should have been the October end-of-season rush.
The vendors in the souk were desperate, starting the haggling process on any item that I examined at so meagre a figure – and so dispiritedly – that it was impossible to feel anything but pity.
It is easy to absorb the horror of a terrorist attack, then swipe a black mark of damnation across the entire country (and the many people who live there) in question. Indeed, such a reaction is one of the key ambitions of such assaults.
But to eliminate Tunisia from future travel plans on the basis of headlines made a decade ago is both unnecessary and unfair. There have been atrocities in several holiday hotspots since June 2015: in the Maldives, in Sri Lanka, in Kenya, in Istanbul, in Barcelona, in Paris, in London.
Yes, there is good reason as to why the Sousse killings are so ingrained in the British national consciousness, but Tunisia is not a lone outlier.
Of course, there are plenty of holidaymakers who have chosen to move on from that dreadful day. As stated above, there were 278,000 British holidaymakers on Tunisian soil in 2024, the majority of whom flew in for a packaged week of seafront relaxation.
While Sousse remains – understandably – a tricky proposition to sell to the British market, there are several alternative possibilities along Tunisia's 713 miles of Mediterranean coastline. If all you want of a holiday is a chance to curl up with a book on a sun-lounger, the resort-hotels of Hammamet, Monastir, Skanes and Mahdia will prove a suitable context.
Equally, if you want to peer beyond the beach, Tunisia rewards exploration. Its Roman sites – not least the remarkable amphitheatre of El Djem, a close cousin of the Colosseum – are among the most spectacular in North Africa.
The Berber settlements of the south-east, meanwhile (including the much-cherished Star Wars filming location that is Tataouine), offer another perspective on the country – one of red desert and dusty drama.
Moreover, there are quiet signs that Tunisia's tourism arc is curving gently upwards. Back in November, easyJet launched a pair of direct flights (from Luton and Manchester) to Djerba – the island which, though it is North Africa's biggest, has generally gone unnoticed by British tourists (in contrast to the French and German holidaymakers who have long appreciated its charms).
There are further beach hotels here, but also kernels of local life – including the 'capital' Houmt Souk, where (as its name suggests) there are streets and passages filled with small shops, delicate trinkets, and those pleasing aromas of cardamon and cloves. A decade on from disaster, Tunisia deserves a closer inspection.