Fourteen lifeless bodies of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa have been recovered from the coast of Tunisia. Six women are among the migrants. They are victims of the shipwreck that occurred on Tuesday near the Tunisian city of Sfax. The body of the Tunisian captain of the sunken boat was also found during the search. The spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard reports this in a statement on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Coast Guard announced that ten bodies of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa had been recovered after Tuesday’s shipwreck. Dozens of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have been killed in recent weeks after improvised boats carrying them illegally to Europe sank off the Tunisian coast. On April 7, the National Guard announced that “14,406 persons, including 13,138 from Sub-Saharan Africa” had been rescued or intercepted in the first three months of the year. That number is five times higher than in the same period last year.
Some parts of the Tunisian coastline are less than 150 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Tunisia therefore often registers departure attempts by migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, towards Italy. Attempts to leave have increased following a speech by Tunisian President Kais Saied at the end of February, in which he criticized illegal migration. After the speech, a large part of the 21,000 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa counted in Tunisia lost jobs and homes overnight as a result of a campaign against illegal immigrants.
The National Guard spokesman also reported that 41 Tunisian migrants, including five women and nine children, were rescued near Sousse.
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