In spring and summer, thanks to milder weather, attempts at illegal emigration to Europe tend to increase.
The Tunisian Navy rescued, on Sunday, August 14, 42 migrants of Egyptian nationality off Kerkennah (center-east). According to the local press, the migrants left the Libyan coast on the night of August 12 to 13. Their boat sank. They had managed to board the “Ashtart” oil terminal in the southeast of the island of Kerkennah before being rescued by the Tunisian Navy. The migrants were taken to the El-Ketf fishing port in Ben Guerdane (governorate of Medenine) where they were handed over to the National Guard to “take the necessary measures against them”, the Tunisian Defense Ministry said. In August 2021, eighteen Egyptian migrants died in the sinking of their boat and 51 others were rescued off the coast of Libya.
Last week, a boat carrying 30 Tunisian migrants was shipwrecked off the Kerkennah Islands, recalls Webdo. Twenty migrants had been rescued and eight bodies were recovered from the 30 people ( three women, four children, and a man).
Multiplication of attempts
In spring and summer, thanks to milder weather, attempts at illegal emigration to Europe tend to increase. Tunisian maritime authorities thwarted five new attempts and intercepted or rescued 82 people from the night of Thursday, August 11 to Friday, August 12. The maritime authorities announced on Sunday, August 7 that they had rescued or intercepted more than 280 migrants, including 170 sub-Saharans, who were trying to leave the east coast of Tunisian territory. Italy, some of whose coasts are only 200 km from the Tunisian coast, is one of the main entry points into Europe for migrants from North Africa.
Slowdown during the Covid epidemic
Egyptians are not the most numerous to try to reach Europe. The migrants mainly come from Tunisia and Libya, two neighboring countries from which departures have started to grow again in the past two years, after a slowdown during the Covid epidemic. Tunisia is going through a serious political and economic crisis and now has 4 million poor people. Libya has been in chaos since 2011 with militias managing the lucrative trafficking of sub-Saharan migrants. Between January 1 and July 22, 2022, 34,000 people arrived by sea in Italy, compared to 25,500 in the same period of 2021, and 10,900 in 2020, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.
