Another 14 bodies of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found after a shipwreck occurred Tuesday off Tunisia, bringing the death toll in the incident to 24, the Tunisian Coast Guard announced Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Tunisian Coast Guard said it had recovered 10 bodies and rescued 72 migrants alive after a precarious boat capsized off Sfax, in the center-east of the country, which left with an unknown number of migrants on board from Tunisia towards the Italian coast in the Mediterranean.
Authorities said Thursday they had recovered the bodies of the 14 migrants, six of them women and also the Tunisian “captain” of the boat.
According to the Tunisian security authorities, between 10 and 15 migrants are still missing.
On Tuesday, dozens of asylum seekers camped out in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) headquarters in Tunis were dispersed by police, who used tear gas. The Tunisian authorities claim to have dispersed the migrants at the request of the UNHCR itself.
After being forced to leave the site, the asylum seekers joined the ranks of another makeshift camp in front of the offices of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), where they live in abject poverty.
Two Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), as well as the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), demanded this Thursday “a safe place” for migrants.
“The priority is to protect these people, especially women and children, who must be placed in a safe place,” said Zeineb Mrouki, from Lawyers Without Borders (ASF), at a press conference in Tunis.
Tunisia, with some stretches of coastline less than 150 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa, regularly records incursions of migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, seeking to reach Europe via Italy.
The attempts intensified following a violent speech on February 21 by Tunisian President Kais Saied criticizing illegal immigration.
Saied said that the presence in Tunisia of “hordes” of illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa constitutes a source of “violence and crime”, stressing that it is a “criminal enterprise” aimed at “changing the demographic composition” of the country.
Following the speech, most of the 21,000 sub-Saharan African citizens officially registered in Tunisia, and a good number of others in an irregular situation, lost their jobs, usually informal, and their residence permits as a result of the campaign against illegal immigrants. .
Most of the African immigrants arrive in Tunisia and then attempt to emigrate to Europe illegally by sea.
The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who regretted Saied’s statements, called on Thursday for “joint efforts to guarantee an immediate rescue and dignified, effective and complete treatment for a safe place” for migrants. trying to cross the Mediterranean.
But the shock wave caused by Saied’s remarks was felt most by the hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees in Tunisia waiting to be sent to third countries.
Tunisia is a signatory to the Geneva Convention (since 1951, on the protection of refugees), so it is obliged to guarantee the fundamental rights of migrants.
“They urgently need a place to settle. And some of them have many health problems that need to be addressed,” said Romdhane Ben Amor of FTDES, demanding authorities allow aid organizations and citizens to support refugees and migrants.
Confirming the arrest of a volunteer in recent days, Ben Amor denounced that Tunes is resorting to a recently approved law that “criminalizes any form of assistance to people in an irregular situation.”
On April 7, the Tunisian Coast Guard announced that it had rescued or intercepted 14,406 people in the first three months of this year, of which 13,138 were from sub-Saharan Africa, the rest being Tunisian, figures five times higher than those registered in the same period of 2022.
Tunisia is part of the so-called Central Mediterranean route, one of the deadliest migratory routes, which also starts from Libya and Algeria towards Europe, specifically the Italian and Maltese territories.
Source: TSF
