Dozens of migrants drowned off Tunisia in new shipwrecks

The number of attempts to cross into Italy from Tunisia has increased considerably, as well as shipwrecks, since the Tunisian president's heavy-handed speech. Here, a boat carrying 29 people that sank off the Tunisian coast in October 2020 (illustration). © Houssem Zouari / AFP

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The Tunisian Coast Guard announced on Sunday (March 26th) that at least 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa drowned in three different shipwrecks off Tunisia. It is a new drama in a series of migration tragedies in the Mediterranean since Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed's violent speech in February on illegal immigration.

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According to the Tunisian coast guard statement, a Tunisian trawler recovered 19 bodies after a boat sank 58 kilometers offshore. Then a coast guard patrol found eight drowned off Mahdia, a strip of sea between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa on the east coast, but rescued 11 people. Their boat, which was heading towards Italy, capsized. And trawlers recovered two more bodies.

It is a series of tragedies since Kaïs Saïed's speech on February 21. In it, the Tunisian president denounced the "hordes" of illegal immigrants and the "criminal enterprise" aimed at "changing the demographic composition" of the country.

These words of the Head of State have weakened the situation of thousands of sub-Saharans living in Tunisia: many of the 21,000 sub-Saharan African nationals officially registered in Tunisia, most of them in an irregular situation, had lost overnight their jobs, usually informal, and their housing, because of the campaign against illegal immigrants.

Since then, many have been trying to leave the country: according to the UN, migrant arrivals in Italy jumped by 226% in the first quarter of 2023.

For their part, France and Italy on Friday called for support for Tunisia, facing a serious financial crisis, in order to contain the "migratory pressure" that this country represents for Europe. Rome fears an explosion in migrant flows to its coasts, aided by economic and political difficulties in Tunisia, but also by mild weather as summer approaches, facilitating crossings.

► Also listen: Stay or go? Tunisia's Sub-Saharans face stigma

(With AFP)

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Read on on the same topics:

  • Tunisia
  • Immigration
  • International migration
  • Refugees
  • Italy