About thirty African migrants drowned off the coast of Tunisia

The Tunisian coast guard service reported on Monday the discovery of 31 bodies of African migrants, who drowned when they tried to cross the Mediterranean towards Italy.

The same source indicated in a statement that, among the bodies, were those of two women and two children.

The remains of the migrants were recovered off the coast of the southern towns of Sfax, Kerkennah and Mahdia (about 200 kilometers south of the country's capital).

On the other side of the Mediterranean, another boat that was also carrying people in an irregular situation sank off the coast of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, sources from the island's port captaincy confirmed to Efe on Monday.

About twenty migrants disappeared in that incident, according to what the 34 survivors explained, who did manage to be rescued by a fishing boat that was in the area and also recovered a body.

The number of migrant boats from Tunisia heading to the Italian coasts has increased notably since the beginning of the year and, in recent weeks, several shipwrecks have been recorded.

On April 14, the bodies of another 32 migrants were recovered in the waters of the Maghreb country, while just two weeks earlier, on March 26, there had been two other incidents of this type, in which 29 people died, also off the coast of Mahdia.

Tunisia has taken over from Libya as the main departure point for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East bound for Europe via Italy.

At least 12,083 people arrived in that European country from the Tunisian coasts from the beginning of the year until March 13, while, in the same period, 7,057 migrants who disembarked in Italy after traveling from Libya were, according to data from the Ministry of the Italian interior.

the italian way

Italy has been the main gateway for migrants who reached Europe irregularly in the last quarter.

More than half of the entries across community borders (27,651 in the first three months of 2023), according to Frontex, the European border agency, have occurred by sea through the central Mediterranean route.

The figures have almost quadrupled compared to the previous year.

Until April 11, when Italy declared a state of emergency, arrivals by sea amounted to 31,292, while in the same period of the previous year they were 7,928.

And in 2021 they stood at 8,505.

The Italian government, led by the far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, declared a state of emergency on April 11 to expedite the processes of identification and expulsion of migrants, in what the country's media considered a warning to the European Union and the other community partners in the face of an issue that Italy considers is not being addressed jointly.

In February, Tunisian President Kais Said lashed out at sub-Saharan irregular migrants, declaring: “There has been a criminal plan designed since the beginning of the century aimed at altering the demographic composition of Tunisia to transform it into a simple African country with no ties to the Arab and Islamic world.

Following those statements, dozens of black Africans were harassed and attacked, prompting several West African states to organize the repatriation of hundreds of their citizens from Tunisia.

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