One more tragedy in the Mediterranean.
More than 50 people are missing after the sinking, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, of a boat that left Libya to reach Europe clandestinely, the latest tragedy on one of the deadliest migratory routes in the world.
About 90 migrants were on board the boat, according to the first elements collected from the castaways, said Tuesday the spokesman of the Tunisian Ministry of Defense Mohamed Zikri.
The latter said that there were 33 survivors, mostly from Bangladesh.
They were collected on the offshore oil platform Miskar, in southern Tunisia, and the country's authorities are working to repatriate them to the Tunisian port of Zarzis, in the south-east, not far from the Libyan border. , according to the same source.
❗Unfortunately another shipwreck occured off Sfax, Tunisia.
Probably at least 50 migrants went missing.
Survivors are 33, all from Bangladesh.
They had departed last Sunday from Zwara, Libya.
- Flavio Di Giacomo (@fladig) May 18, 2021
According to a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Italy, Flavio Di Giacomo, the migrants took to sea Sunday from the Libyan port of Zouara, 150 km from Zarzis.
"We do not know the nationality of the more than 50 missing," he told AFP.
More than 700 dead since January
Tunisia regularly helps migrants who left neighboring Libya who are shipwrecked in the central Mediterranean.
It is one of the deadliest migration routes according to the United Nations.
The UN counted more than 700 deaths in the Mediterranean between January 1 and May 17, 2021, against 1,400 deaths for the whole of 2020. Departures from Libya have increased since the beginning of the year.
On Monday, the Tunisian navy has already rescued 113 migrants, originating in particular from Bangladesh and Sudan, who were “on the verge of sinking” off the island of Djerba. They said they also left Zouara on Sunday. At the same time, many boats were intercepted by the Libyan coast guard overnight from Sunday to Monday.
According to a Twitter post from IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli, "680 migrants were intercepted and brought back to Libya" that night alone. She called for "reconsidering" the support given by the international community to Libyan sea rescue organizations, due to arbitrary detentions and abuses. The UN and human rights organizations are calling for an end to bringing migrants intercepted at sea back to Libya, because they are subject to deplorable detention conditions. The European Union, for its part, has been supporting Libyan forces for several years, which play the role of coastguards, intercepting migrants and imprisoning them in centers without any real legal process. In total, between May 9 and 15,1,074 migrants were brought back to Libya after having taken to sea from there, according to the IOM.
More than 680 migrants were intercepted and taken back to #Libya last night.
Support to Libyan SaR entities should be contingent on no one being arbitrarily detained or subjected to human rights violations.
Without such guarantees, such support should be reconsidered.
pic.twitter.com/K6ZN1EcU9n
- Safa Msehli (@msehlisafa) May 17, 2021
Faced with attempts to find safe places for asylum seekers, the head of the Tunisian government, Hichem Mechichi, reiterated last week in Lisbon his country's opposition to the establishment, on its territory, of centers of 'Home.
Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese is expected in Tunis on May 20 with European Commissioner Ylva Johansson to discuss aid and repatriation.
Libya, which is trying to emerge from a decade of conflict, remains a hub for illegal immigration on its way to Europe, where tens of thousands of migrants fleeing countries in sub-Saharan Africa find themselves in the hands of traffickers. As of May 16, more than 13,000 people had arrived by sea irregularly in Italy, double the same period last year, of which nearly 9,000 had taken to sea in Libya, according to the UN. During the first three months of the year, the main groups arriving are Bangladeshis, Sudanese and Guineans, according to the portal of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
