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At least 43 people have disappeared in Mediterranean waters when a precarious boat that left the Libyan city of Zawara was wrecked off the coast of Tunisia after being chartered by transnational mafias dedicated to smuggling people, reported this Saturday a representative of the Media Luna Local red.
In statements to the Efe agency, the source assured that the boat had left hours before from the aforementioned town, near the border with Tunisia, and was drifting due to strong winds, waves and currents, which dragged it towards West.
84 more people were traveling on the boat, mostly from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Bangladesh, who were rescued and taken ashore, where they received first aid before being sent to detention centers and handed over to local authorities for their prosecution.
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This is the most serious shipwreck that occurs so far this year off the coast of Tunisia after another 41 people, including a dozen women and a young child, drowned when one sank on April 17. boat that had been chartered by local mafias on the beach of Sidi Mansour, near Sfax, the second largest city in the country.
The boat, which had left at dawn with the intention of reaching the nearby Italian island of Lampedusa, sank due to its precariousness, overweight and adverse weather conditions, with rain, strong winds and great waves, added the source.
Various humanitarian organizations had warned of the high risk of shipwrecks throughout this weekend due to the excellent weather conditions of the last ten days, in which there have been other shipwrecks, interceptions and salvages. This Friday, eight people died and 46 more were rescued after another shipwreck. Two more had perished a week earlier when they fell into the sea from a boat that was beginning to sink with 178 men and women on board and who were rescued by units of the Tunisian Coast Guard and returned to land.
The castaways came from Bangladesh, Eritrea, Egypt, Mali and the Ivory Coast and had left from the Libyan city of Zawara, as did 267 other people who had left the day before and were drifting due to an engine failure when they were spotted by a Tunisian patrol boat.
Those rescued, mostly from Bangladesh, were transferred to a hotel on the island of Djerba, 90 kilometers away, where they serve the mandatory quarantine before being referred to one of the five already overcrowded migrant reception centers.
133% more than in 2020
In addition, the bodies of 14 other people have been recovered this Saturday on a beach near the Libyan city of Zawiya, also close to the border with Tunisia and one of the springboards of irregular migration from North Africa to Europe, reported by its part is the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an agency linked to the United Nations. In a statement released through social networks, the spokesperson for the aforementioned organization for Libya, Safa Msehli, explained that among the bodies returned by the waves to land, one belonged to a woman and the other to a minor.
According to a recent study by the NGO Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), about 2,800 migrants - including 322 unaccompanied minors - managed to reach the Italian coast from Tunisia during the first five months of the year, while 215 have lost their lives on the journey.
On the other hand, the authorities intercepted more than 5,500 people until the end of May, an increase of 133% compared to 2020 and 500% compared to 2019. According to IOM statistics, around 700 people have drowned in the Mediterranean so far this year in its attempt to reach the shores of Europe, a figure that the Missing Migrants program warns could be higher, since there are “ghost” boats whose tracks are difficult to follow.