A four-year-old Tunisian girl, who arrived in Italy in early October without her parents aboard a makeshift boat carrying illegal migrants, was repatriated to Tunisia on Thursday (November 24th), authorities announced.
"
A Tunisian child protection delegate accompanied the four-year-old girl on her return trip from Italy and handed her over to her family upon their arrival at Tunis-Carthage airport
," said in a statement the Ministry of Women, Family, Children and the Elderly.
The “healthy” girl
The return of this little girl, "
in good health
" comes after a decision by the Italian courts allowing her repatriation, at the request of the Tunisian authorities, added the ministry.
A Tunisian diplomatic delegation traveled to Sicily at the end of October to meet the Italian family court judge in charge of this case.
The whole family of this girl - the father, the mother, the little girl and her 7-year-old brother - had planned to embark from the coastal town of Sayada (east) to reach the Italian coast illegally.
Read alsoTurkey: increase in the departure of illegal migrants to Europe
During this clandestine operation, the father had handed over his daughter to the smuggler on the boat to help his wife and son who remained far behind, without realizing that the boat had left for Lampedusa, according to the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), an organization that monitors migration issues.
The girl's parents, street vendors, were taken into custody before being released.
According to the FTDES, around 2,600 Tunisian minors, more than two-thirds of whom were unaccompanied by their parents, managed to reach the Italian coast between January and August 2022.
Serious politico-economic crisis
Tunisia, some points of the coast of which are only 130 km from Sicily, is going through a serious political and economic crisis with now four million poor people out of nearly 12 million inhabitants.
This situation is precipitating mass departures to Europe.
More than 22,500 migrants including Tunisians and sub-Saharans have been intercepted off the Tunisian coast since the beginning of the year, according to official figures.
