2023-08-12 21:36:08
A young Tunisian and a baby died, and five people are missing, after the new sinking of a boat transporting candidates for emigration to Europe, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned on Saturday August 12 from official sources. .
The drama “occurred at 2 a.m. (3 a.m. in France) 120 meters from the beach”near Gabès (south-east), reported the national guard in a press release, specifying that 13 people were saved on “the 20 occupants of the boat”.
The search for possible survivors continued on Saturday, according to the same source, in the vast Gulf of Gabes, characterized by strong sea currents. “Two bodies were recovered, that of a 20-year-old boy and the other of a baby”whose parents survived, said the national guard, announcing the opening of a judicial inquiry into ” circumstances “ drama.
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The boat had just left Gabes when the occupants saw a trawler which they took for a National Guard boat. They then sought to turn around, according to testimonies of fishermen to local journalists. They made a false maneuver and the boat turned over, the baby remaining stuck in the nets on the deck, according to these witnesses.
1,800 dead since January
More than 1,800 people, more than double last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), have died since January in shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean (between North Africa and Italy), the most important migratory route. killer in the world.
The last known shipwreck off Tunisia left 11 dead and 44 missing among migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, who had left from around Sfax (center-east), judicial sources announced on August 7. This port city is this year the epicenter of attempts to cross the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coasts, distant, at their closest point, about 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Departures of African migrants accelerated after a speech in February by Tunisian President Kais Saied denouncing the arrival of “hordes of migrants” illegal immigrants who, according to him, “changing the demographic composition” from his country. In July, many more attempted the crossing after hundreds of Africans were driven out of Sfax, following the death of a Tunisian on July 3 in a brawl between migrants and locals.
More than 2,000 other Africans were at the same time “expelled” by the security forces to desert and uninhabited areas on the borders with Libya, to the east, and Algeria, to the west, according to humanitarian sources at AFP. A total of 27 people died in the Tunisian-Libyan desert, and 73 others are missing, according to these sources.
Financial crisis and political tensions
More than 95,000 migrants have arrived since the start of the year in Italy, according to Rome, more than double the same period of 2022, from Tunisia and Libya. Over the first six months of the year, the Tunisian National Guard intercepted more than 34,000 migrants, mainly Africans, almost four times more than a year earlier.
Since early August, “in just 10 days”units based in Sfax intercepted or rescued approximately “3,000 migrants, 90% of whom are sub-Saharans and 10% Tunisians”said Thursday the commander Mouhamed Borhen Chamtouri, to an AFP team embarked on a speedboat of the national guard.
Read also: Tunisia and Libya reach an agreement to welcome migrants stranded at the border
Thousands of Tunisians set sail each year in search of a better life in Europe. They represent since the beginning of 2023 the fourth nationality among the migrants landed in Italy, behind the Ivorians, the Guineans and the Egyptians. However, arrivals of Tunisians have fallen by 25% over one year with 7,121 migrants since the start of the year, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.
Tunisia, plunged into a financial crisis, has also been marked by strong political tensions since the coup by which President Saied seized all the powers on July 25, 2021. Twenty opponents have been imprisoned since February .
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