During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the Tunisian coast guard rescued 423 exiles, including 352 from sub-Saharan Africa. A few days earlier, the authorities had claimed that attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea were on a “sharp increase”.
New major operation off the Tunisian coast. On the night of Saturday, February 18 to Sunday, February 19, the National Coast Guard foiled 16 attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea and rescued 423 migrants. Three hundred and fifty-two were of sub-Saharan origin and 71 were Tunisian nationals, said a statement from the National Guard spokesman on his Facebook page.
Two days before the rescues on Friday, the Tunisian Coast Guard said illegal migration had “seen a sharp increase” in the past week due to “improving weather conditions”.
Tunisia, some portions of the coastline of which are less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, very regularly records attempts to leave migrants for Italy. Between January 1 and February 16, 2023, the Coast Guard prevented 191 irregular sea crossing operations and rescued 5,216 migrants, including 560 Tunisians, the National Guard said in a statement reported by the Tunisian news agency (TAP). ). During this period, 48 smugglers were also arrested, the document specifies.
Throughout 2022, more than 32,000 migrants arrived in Italy from Tunisia, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.
A country in crisis
If the nationalities of the exiles who disembarked are diverse, Tunisia is one of the most represented countries, with 18,000 of its citizens arriving on the Italian coasts. For a year and a half, the country has been going through an acute political crisis, coupled with a sharp deterioration in its economy. President Kaïs Saied has also concentrated all powers for 18 months and has revised the Constitution to reduce the prerogatives of Parliament, and returned to an ultra-presidential system similar to that before the 2011 revolution and the fall of dictator Zine el -Abidine Ben Ali.
Inflation at more than 10%, the increase in poverty, and the deepening of the debt complete the list of reasons that push Tunisians to consider their future elsewhere in Europe.
But on this very busy migratory route, there are many tragedies. Five migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in the sinking of their boat off Sfax, while they were trying to get to Europe illegally, the spokesman for the prosecution told AFP on January 7. from the city. Five people have also been missing since the sinking, despite search operations to try to find survivors.
On December 24, 2022, the body of a little girl was found on a beach in Sidi Founkhal, on the Kerkennah Islands. The child, about three years old, was discovered by chance by a resident of the city of Sfax, who took her picture. Face down, dressed in a pink jacket and tights, her identity is not known, says Mediapart in an article. The same day, bodies of sub-Saharan adults were also found on this Tunisian beach.
This archipelago populated by 15,000 inhabitants, off the coast of the city of Sfax is regularly confronted with the dramas of immigration. Nasser, a fisherman from one of his islands told Médiapart to see “dead bodies almost every day”.
