Today, Saturday, a commercial cargo ship carrying 750 tons of fuel sank due to an accident due to bad weather off the southern coast of Tunisia, and its crew of 7 people was evacuated, at a time when the authorities were trying hard to limit possible pollution.
The official spokesman for the (southeast) Gabes court, Mohamed Al-Karray, told AFP that the ship had already sank today in Tunisian waters, but so far there has been no fuel leakage.
The disaster committee will meet at the headquarters of the Gabes governorate in the coming hours to take decisions on how to deal with any pollution that may result from the accident, according to Al-Karay.
And the official spokesman indicated that the team of the sunken ship consisted of a Georgian captain, 4 Turks and two Azerbaijanis, and they were taken to the hospital, and then accommodated in a hotel while they are "in normal condition."
The Ministry of Environment said earlier today, Saturday, in a statement that the merchant ship "Kiselo" is flying the flag of Equatorial Guinea, and it is carrying about 750 tons of gasoil (diesel).
In another statement, the Ministry of Environment confirmed the sinking of the ship, and announced the activation of the "national plan for urgent intervention" in the event of marine pollution in order to avoid a marine disaster in the region.
government move
The ship was coming from the Egyptian port of Damietta and heading to Malta.
However, difficulties prevented it from continuing its course due to bad weather and turbulence in the sea, and it asked the Tunisian authorities, on Friday evening, to enable it to enter the country's territorial waters.
It was allowed to anchor about 7 kilometers off the coast of the Gulf of Gabes (south).
However, sea water seeped into the engine room, submerging it to a height of two metres.
The Tunisian authorities evacuated the team of 7 people from the ship, who issued a distress call to the Tunisian authorities yesterday evening, Friday, while the Minister of Environment, Leila Chikhaoui, moved to the governorate of Gabes to inspect the sinking incident, according to the ministry.
She added that the Ministries of Defense, Interior, Transport and Customs Administration are working to "avoid the occurrence of a marine environmental disaster in the region and limit its repercussions."
But she stressed that the situation was "under control."
The beaches of the governorate of Gabes have been suffering from pollution for years, due to the presence of many facilities and factories in the region, which dump their industrial waste directly into the sea, according to environmental organizations, which always denounce this.
Factories for converting polluting phosphate are also concentrated near the Gulf of Gabes, a fishing area where thousands of fishermen are active.
The last maritime accident in which Tunisia was a party dates back to the 7th of October 2018, when the Tunisian cargo ship "Ulyss" collided with the Cypriot ship "Virginia CLS" while it was at a distance of 28 km from the coast of Corsica outside the territorial waters, which led to an oil leak. It was estimated at that time about 600 tons of fuel.
Investigations carried out by the Tunisian Ministry of Transport showed that a "human error" was the cause of the accident.