Thirteen bodies of migrants were pulled from the sea off Sfax, Tunisia’s second city, on Thursday, the Tunisian coast guard announced, which also rescued another 25 migrants.
First modification:
2 min
On Thursday, July 13, the Tunisian coast guard announced that they had recovered 13 bodies of migrants killed in a shipwreck off the coast of the port city of Sfax, where clashes between migrants and the local population broke out last week.
“Last night, units affiliated with the Sfax maritime region thwarted a clandestine crossing attempt and rescued 25 sub-Saharan migrants, but 13 bodies were recovered,” the national guard said in a statement.
Sfax, the second largest city in Tunisia, is this year the main point of departure for potential emigrants to Europe, with the Italian island of Lampedusa less than 150km off the Tunisian coast.
Last week, this city of a million people was the scene of clashes that claimed the life of a Tunisian on July 3.
Hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants were expelled from the city and taken by the Tunisian authorities, according to NGOs, to inhospitable areas on the borders with Libya, to the east, and Algeria, to the west.
According to the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), at least between 100 and 150 migrants remained stranded on Thursday night near the Libyan border, near Ras Jedir, in a militarized area, without water, shelter or food. On Wednesday they made a distress call in a video sent to AFP, saying children and pregnant women were among them.
Increase in xenophobia
According to HRW, another group of 200 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have been stranded near the Algerian border in Tamaghza, 600 km south of Tunis. Rescue teams are said to be on their way to help them.
Witnesses informed the AFP of several convoys that dispersed dozens of migrants in areas close to 1,000 km from the border with Algeria.
Between Sunday and Monday, the Tunisian Red Crescent took in 630 migrants, some of whom had spent a week in the Ras Jedir security zone on the Libyan border.
According to the latest figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published in June, this year 51,215 illegal immigrants arrived in Italy by sea, 150% more than the previous year. Almost half came from Tunisia and the other half from Libya. A thousand migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean during this period.
An increasingly overtly xenophobic discourse has spread since Tunisian President Kaïs Saïd, who assumed full power in July 2021, lashed out at illegal immigration in February.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in French
#Tunisia #Coastguard #removes #bodies #migrants #sea #Sfax