Two Tunisian candidates for emigration, including a baby, died and five others are missing in a new shipwreck off the Tunisian coast, according to official sources.
The tragedy “occurred at 2 a.m. (1 a.m. GMT) 120 meters from the beach” of Gabes in southeastern Tunisia, “where 20 Tunisians were,” the National Guard said in a statement, stressing only 13 were saved.
Search operations are still underway in the very vast Gulf of Gabès, characterized by strong sea currents, to find other survivors, according to the same source.
“Two bodies were recovered, that of a 20-year-old boy and the other of a baby” of undetermined age, the National Guard said.
“An investigation has been opened by the court” of Gabès to “determine the circumstances of the tragedy”, according to the press release.
More than 1,800 people, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), have perished since January in shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean (between North Africa and Italy), the deadliest migration route in the world, more than double the past year.
The last known shipwreck off the Tunisian coast left 11 dead and 44 missing off the port of Sfax (center east), judicial sources announced on August 7. Only two of the migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa, could be rescued.
Twelve bodies had been found during the last weekend on a beach north of this city, the second in Tunisia (located about 140 km north of Gabès) without justice being able to immediately say if they were linked to the sinking off Sfax.
EPICENTER OF THE CROSSINGS
Sfax is this year the epicenter of attempts to cross the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coast, distant, at their closest point, about 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The departures of African migrants have accelerated after a speech on February 21 by Tunisian President Kais Saied denouncing the arrival of “hordes of illegal migrants” who, according to him, have “changed the demographic composition” of his country.
And in July, many more decided to attempt 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 Tunisian security forces to desert and uninhabited areas on the borders with Libya to the east and Algeria to the west, according to humanitarian sources. AFP. A total of 27 people died in the Tunisian-Libyan desert, and 73 others are missing, according to these humanitarian sources.
More than 95,000 migrants have arrived since the beginning of the year on the Italian coasts, according to Rome, more than double compared to the same period of 2022, from Tunisia and Libya.
As of June 20, the Tunisian National Guard said it had intercepted 34,290 migrants over six months, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 9,217 over the same period of 2022.
Since the beginning of August, “in just 10 days”, National Guard units based in Sfax have intercepted “about 3,000 migrants, 90% of whom are sub-Saharans and 10% Tunisians”, Commander Mouhamed Borhen Chamtouri said on Thursday. to an AFP team embarked for 24 hours on a National Guard patrol boat.
Thousands of Tunisians also set sail every year in search of a better life in Europe. They represent since the beginning of the year the fourth nationality among those arriving in Italy, behind the Ivorians, Guineans and Egyptians.
Tunisia, in the grip of serious financial difficulties, is also going through a deep political crisis since the coup by which President Saied seized all the powers on July 25, 2021. About twenty opponents, including well-known figures , have been imprisoned since February.
