In Tunisia, the cemeteries are filling up.
The rescue workers recovered more than 40 dead off the coast of the North African country in the past few days.
Several overcrowded migrant boats had sunk on the way to Italy.
But almost every day the sea washes new corpses onto the beach if they don't get caught in the fishermen's nets.
Many of the nameless dead find their final resting place in the “cemetery of the unknown” in the coastal town of Zarzis.
Hans-Christian Rößler
Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb, based in Madrid.
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In addition to the West Africans and Asians, there are more and more Tunisians on the boats.
Last year they made up the largest group among the newcomers in Italy with a good 13,000;
in the year before Corona there were fewer than a thousand.
Many of them are fleeing the consequences of the pandemic, which has exacerbated the economic crisis in the North African country and which is hit Tunisia with a new devastating wave.
Some are already talking of a real Covid "tsunami": In June alone, 2000 Tunisians who died because of or with the virus were buried;
in total there are already more than 15,000 deaths in the country with only a good eleven million inhabitants.
Overcrowded hospitals, too few nurses
The hospitals are hopelessly overcrowded. 600 patients are fighting for their lives in the intensive care units. Sick people lie in the hallways, some in the open air on mattresses, as reported in the local press. There was a lack of staff, so that the dead sometimes stayed in their beds for 24 hours until someone could take them to the morgue, nurses in Kairouan told the AFP news agency. Field hospitals have already been set up in some places. At the same time, the oxygen supply is running out. The federal government has already helped with 25 ventilators. Italy has also promised support.
In Tunisia it is painfully noticeable that the vaccination campaign only started late in March and has progressed only slowly since then. According to the Tunisian Pasteur Institute, the North African country had received 1.8 million doses of vaccine by the end of June. A larger shipment of Johnson's single-use vaccine is now being negotiated. Only around four percent of the population has been fully protected so far - far too little to fight the contagious Delta variant, which is also spreading in Tunisia. 18 cases have already been registered, with the laboratories only sequencing a few samples.
"The situation is worrying, Tunisia is the country with the highest mortality rate on the African continent," said the WHO representative in Tunisia, Yves Souteyrand. In the province of Siliana, the seven-day incidence rose to 700 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. As in the previous summer, many Tunisians became more careless again. They celebrated big weddings and families visited each other during the Islamic sugar festival. Traditionally, many Tunisians who live in Europe travel to their homeland during this time.
Now the government pulled the emergency brake.
There is a night curfew throughout the country, and restaurants have to close in the late afternoon.
The army is helping to enforce the restrictions.
However, experts believe a strict lockdown across the country is necessary, which should last several weeks.
So far, only six regions have decided to do this.
This will be the case for the capital Tunis this coming weekend.
Depending on tourism
This is fatal for the country's struggling economy. Many Tunisians work as day laborers. They live from hand to mouth and had to fight before Corona. Unemployment is 18 percent, but it is much higher, especially among young Tunisians. The tourism industry, on which almost a quarter of the population is directly or indirectly dependent, threatens a second lost year. Since the country reopened at the end of April, tourists have also returned. They no longer come from Western Europe as they used to be, but from Eastern Europe; there are many Russians among them. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, there were a total of almost ten million vacationers in 2019. This year one hopes for at least a million. But it could be even less. The German Robert Koch Institute has classified Tunisia as a high incidence area,the Czech Republic forbids its citizens to travel to the country.
However, the resurgence of the pandemic is only the symptom of a larger crisis that the Tunisian government has not been dealing with for years. The last remaining land of hope for the “Arab Spring” is practically bankrupt. The government is negotiating a loan of 3.3 billion euros with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In return, the donors are demanding far-reaching reforms and a reduction in subsidies, which the powerful trade union umbrella organization UGTT in particular rejects. Time is of the essence, because Tunisia will have to repay old debts of several billion euros this year. But the country has been politically blocked for months by a power struggle between President Kaïs Saïed and Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi.
Dissatisfaction among Tunisians is growing. The demonstrations against corruption, unemployment and rising prices have not stopped since the beginning of the year. Often the old revolutionary slogan "The people want the overthrow of the system" is heard, which now applies to the democratically elected leadership, whose security forces are taking ever tougher measures. 2000 young Tunisians were arrested in January. But neither tear gas nor the growing risk of infection stop the demonstrators. In June, more than 40 organizations called for protests against police violence.