Mazara del Vallo, 55 miles south west of Palermo, is home to Italy’s biggest Tunisian community, which makes up around 4,000 of the town’s population of 50,000. Most arrived after the 1960s, when a population boom caused high unemployment in Tunisia, with a solution provided by labour shortages in Sicily’s fishing industry. But this was just the latest wave in a history of immigration from North Africa that goes back to the 9th century CE, when a Tunisian-led army invaded Sicily, turning it into an Islamic emirate for the next 200 years. Mazara’s kasbah was built then, and it was later sacked by subsequent Christian rulers. Today, it’s been restored and is once again home to a majority Tunisian population.