The Tunisian National Guard announced on Friday (April 7th) that it had intercepted or rescued more than 14,000 candidates for emigration to Europe in the first three months of the year, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, five times more than during the same period in 2022.
From January 1 to March 31, the coast guard "thwarted 501 clandestine maritime border crossing operations and rescued 14,406 people, including 13,138 from sub-Saharan Africa, the rest being Tunisians," the National Guard spokesman said on Facebook. The 2023 statistics are "up very sharply because there are a lot of departures," he added.
Dozens of candidates have died in a series of shipwrecks and others have been missing since a violent speech on 21 February by President Kaïs Saïed denouncing illegal immigration. He said the presence in Tunisia of "hordes" of illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa was a source of "violence and crimes" and was part of a "criminal enterprise" aimed at "changing the demographic composition" of the country.
After this speech, many of the 21,000 sub-Saharan African nationals officially registered in Tunisia – most of them in an irregular situation – had lost their jobs, usually informal, and their homes, overnight because of the campaign against illegal immigrants.
>> READ ALSO: "A climate of fear": in Tunisia, sub-Saharan migrants stigmatized and attacked
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, compared to just over 5,300 during the same period last year and 4,300 in 2021.
With AFP
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