Twenty-seven migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are dead or missing and 53 others were rescued after two flimsy boats sank off Tunisia’s coast during attempts to reach Europe, an official said on Saturday.
The incidents are the latest of several over the past few weeks, and came after Tunisian officials reported a fivefold increase in rescues compared with the first quarter of last year.
In Morocco, 11 migrants drowned when their makeshift boat sank off the west coast, media reports said, adding that the dead were eight Moroccans and three sub-Saharans trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.
Photo: EPA-EFE
One migrant was reported to have been rescued.
There was no immediate confirmation of the reports from the Moroccan authorities.
In Tunisia, Faouzi Masmoudi, the court spokesman in Sfax, said that four people died, three were missing and three dozen were saved in the latest tragedy off the country’s coast on Saturday.
“There was a new shipwreck this morning — four bodies were recovered from the beach at Sfax and three other people are missing. Another 36 were saved,” Masmoudi said.
Another vessel with 37 people aboard went down after setting off from Tunisia’s coast before it “sank on Friday afternoon,” and 20 people were unaccounted for, he said.
Citing witness accounts, he added that 17 people were rescued from Friday’s incident.
Investigations have begun into both incidents, Masmoudi said.
The objective was to “find out the organizers behind these attempted crossings in boats made from metal sheeting, which don’t even offer minimum safety conditions, but are cheaper to make than wooden ones,” he said.
Tunisia’s shores, about 150km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, are increasingly being used as a springboard for often perilous attempts by West Africans, Sudanese and others to reach safety and better lives in Europe.
Saturday’s sinking was at least the seventh since the beginning of last month, an Agence France-Presse tally showed, in incidents which have left about 100 people dead or missing.
The latest cases add to the more than 14,000 migrants who Tunisia’s coast guard on Friday said it had intercepted on their way to Europe between January and last month.
That is more than five times the number from the first quarter of last year, official data showed.
“Coast guard patrols prevent 501 clandestine attempts to cross the maritime border and rescued 14,406 [migrants] including 13,138 from sub-Saharan African countries,” between Jan. 1 and March 31, the coast guard said in a statement.
That is up from 2,532 intercepted in the same period last year, including 1,657 from sub-Saharan Africa, Tunisian National Guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli said.
“The number is well up, because many more people are trying to leave,” he said.
Dozens of migrants drowned in a string of incidents last month after comments in February by Tunisian President Kais Saied.
He ordered officials to take “urgent measures” to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that “a criminal plot” was under way to change Tunisia’s demographic makeup.
The comments led to a wave of evictions and violence against black migrants.
Tunisia itself is in the throes of a long-running socioeconomic crisis, with spiraling inflation and persistently high joblessness.
Tunisians are also among the migrants trying to reach Italian shores.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last month urged greater support for the North African country.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that a Tunisian collapse “economically or socially” could trigger a new flow of migrants to Europe — an assessment rejected by Tunis.
An EU delegation visited Tunisia late last month to examine the situation and discuss cooperation over irregular migration.
The Italian Ministry of the Interior said that more than 14,000 migrants have landed in Italy since the start of the year, compared with just more than 5,300 during the same period last year.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS