The French website "Mediapart" said that the image of the little girl (about 3 years old), whose body was dumped by the sea near the Tunisian coasts of the Kerkennah archipelago weeks ago, revealed the ugliness of irregular migration that leaves daily new victims wishing to reach the European shores. To escape the hell of poverty and armed conflicts.
The website added, in an investigation, that a local resident found the body of the little girl with her face to the ground, similar to the situation in which the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi was found on the Turkish shores in 2015, but her image did not enjoy the global spread that Aylan's image had, and her story was not known as his story was known. .
The site quoted the Tunisian citizen, Boulababa Bouksha, as saying that the sea spews out many corpses of irregular migrants on the shores of Kerkennah, but the image of the corpse of the little girl was very impressive and is still stuck in the minds of the residents.
The pilgrimage of immigrants
Mediapart explained that the Tunisian archipelago of Kerkennah has become a pilgrimage destination for immigrants due to its proximity to the shores of the Italian island of Lampedusa, as they succeed in reaching it despite the security measures that tighten the noose on those wishing to go to it, even from the Tunisians themselves, as they must justify their desire to travel to the archipelago.
According to the French website, the fishermen say that they have always encountered "human atrocities", as they saw more than once mutilated corpses thrown out by the sea, and they also encountered the scene of a pregnant woman who drowned while trying to migrate, and even saw skeletons, some of which are still on the island. Rumedia, northeast of Kerkennah, and reported its presence to the authorities, but no one has come to retrieve it yet.
Even the simple barriers that fishermen build to seize fish and direct them to a specific place to catch them have always found corpses of irregular immigrants, in addition to corpses that remain stuck in the water, and the security services do not come to remove and bury them in light of the "absence of capabilities."
The site quoted a citizen from Kerkennah as saying that the figures indicate that about 9 thousand migrants died at sea in 2022, while 18 thousand succeeded in reaching the other bank.
ignorance
The head of the Tunisian Center for Migration and Asylum, Hassan Boubakary, told the website that many indicators reveal that there is a kind of "lightness with death" in the Mediterranean region, in light of the high rate of sinking of migrant boats and the number of victims.
Boubakary added that the security, medical and judicial bodies, along with the International Red Cross, have become responsible - albeit indirectly - for the state of neglect that characterizes the file of irregular migrants, which further complicates the situation, at a time when everyone was waiting for a great effort in dealing with the corpses. Victims and their identification.
It is assumed that the Tunisian National Guard is the one tasked with providing assistance to irregular immigrants, and it is also charged with dealing with the bodies and transporting them to where the scientific units charged with taking pictures of the victims and samples of their DNA deal with them, and after that, the bodies are transferred to the morgue of the dead, where they are kept for a while. Handing her over to her family or burying her with a permit from the competent authorities.