2023-08-07 17:04:14
Eleven migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa, died, and forty-four others missing, after a shipwreck in the Mediterranean off the port of Sfax, the Tunisian city epicenter of illegal emigration, judicial sources announced on Monday August 7 .
At the same time, a Moroccan military source reported the discovery, on the migratory route of the Atlantic, of five bodies of migrants, all Senegalese, after the sinking of their boat off the disputed territory of Western Sahara. A total of 189 others were saved.
In Tunisia, “seven new bodies were recovered on Sunday evening” in addition to the four previously found after the shipwreck north of Sfax, Faouzi Masmoudi, spokesman for the court in Tunisia’s second city, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Research continues”he added, stressing that only two migrants could be rescued on a boat that had fifty-seven occupants, according to the survivors.
Their makeshift boat had left on an undetermined date from a beach north of Sfax, opposite the Kerkennah Islands. The coast guards are trying to find out “if there have been other shipwrecks in this area”after the discovery from Friday to Sunday of “twelve bodies on beaches” north of Sfax, according to Mr. Masmoudi. It is not possible for the moment to know whether or not these come from the shipwreck near the Kerkennah.
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On the other hand, this tragedy has nothing to do with two shipwrecks of boats that left Sfax probably last Thursday, which left at least thirty people missing near the island of Lampedusa, in Italy, according to the Italian coastguards. Sfax is about 130 kilometers from Lampedusa and since the beginning of the year has been the main point of departure for thousands of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
901 bodies since the beginning of the year
From January 1 to July 20, 901 bodies of migrants were recovered off the coast of Tunisia, the majority of them from sub-Saharan Africa, according to an official Tunisian report. According to the latest statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), since the beginning of the year, more than 87,000 migrants have landed illegally in Italy, mainly from Tunisia, the rest arriving from Libya.
The central Mediterranean, between North Africa and Italy, is the most dangerous migration route in the world with more than 20,000 deaths since 2014, according to the International Maritime Organization. Departures of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa accelerated after a speech on 21 February by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed denouncing the arrival of “hordes of migrants” illegal immigrants who, according to him, “changing the demographic composition” from his country.
After the death on July 3 of a Tunisian in a brawl between migrants and locals, hundreds of black Africans were driven out of Sfax. Many have decided to attempt the crossing. And at least two thousand people, according to new data provided by a humanitarian source to AFP, were taken by Tunisian police to the borders with Libya and Algeria and abandoned in desert areas.
At least 25 people have died in the Tunisian-Libyan desert since early July, according to the latest toll from humanitarian sources. In the shipwreck announced Monday in Morocco, the five bodies as well as eleven migrants “in critical condition” were transferred to a hospital in Dakhla.
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The boat of the migrants had left clandestinely “from a country situated to the south of the kingdom”attempting to reach the Canary Islands (Spain), before being intercepted off Guerguerat in « situation difficile », according to the military source. Located at the northwestern tip of Africa, Morocco is a transit country for many migrants seeking to reach Europe from its Atlantic or Mediterranean coasts.
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The migratory route of the Canary Islands, gateway to Europe in the Atlantic Ocean, has experienced a marked upsurge in activity in recent weeks from the coasts of north-west Africa. At least thirteen Senegalese migrants died in mid-July in the sinking of their canoe off the Moroccan coast.
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