Four Tunisians, including a young girl, died and seven others are missing after the sinking of a migrant boat off the large Tunisian city of Sfax (center-east), AFP learned from the coast guard on Friday.
“The boat that left the Tunisian coast sank overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, in front of the Kerkennah islands”, located off Sfax, the country’s second city, spokesman Houssem Eddine Jebabli told AFP. of the national guard.
“According to testimonies, there were 32 migrants on board, all Tunisians. We saved 21 and quickly recovered the first body,” said the official.
Since then, according to him, the coastguards have “rescued three additional bodies including that of a girl”, aged about ten, according to Sfax media.
“Search operations to find other missing persons are continuing,” added the spokesman.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 2,500 people died or disappeared at sea in 2021, trying to reach Europe, in particular Italy, Spain or Greece, via the Mediterranean and the northwest African sea route.
Of the more than 115,000 migrants who arrived in Europe last year, more than 20% came from Tunisia, a country which has experienced weak growth for 10 years and where the unemployment rate recently exceeded 18%, with a rate that reached nearly 41% among young people, including university graduates.
The country, which was the cradle of the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, has been going through a serious political crisis since President Kais Saied’s July 25 coup.
That day, the head of state, democratically elected in 2019, assumed full powers, dismissing the Prime Minister at the time and freezing Parliament, dominated for ten years by the party. inspired by Islamist Ennahdha.
