Two boats went down off Tunisia’s Kerkennah Islands this week, and 27 migrants did not survive. Women and children were among the dead, a civil defence official told AFP on Thursday.
The count of survivors depends on who is asked. Zied Sdiri, who heads civil defence in the city of Sfax, put the number rescued at 83. All the passengers, living and dead, came from sub-Saharan African countries and had been trying to reach Europe, he said. Hatem Al-Sharif, the regional health director for Sfax province, gave Anadolu Agency a different figure: 25 migrants pulled from a boat that sank off Kerkennah on Wednesday. Tunisia’s National Guard, which oversees the coastguard, said searches for other missing passengers were continuing.
A route under pressure
Tunisia is a main launch point for people heading to Europe without papers. Lampedusa, the Italian island, lies only 150 kilometres (90 miles) away and is often where they land first. Tens of thousands attempt the sea crossing every year, and bad weather has made it worse.
This was not the first disaster of the season. On December 18, at least 20 sub-Saharan migrants died in a shipwreck off Sfax, with five more missing. Six days earlier, the coastguard had pulled 27 African migrants from the water near Jebeniana, north of Sfax, but 15 of them were reported dead or missing. On the Monday before the Kerkennah sinkings, officials said two bodies were recovered and 17 people rescued after a makeshift boat broke down off the north coast.
The Tunisian rights group FTDES has counted “between 600 and 700” migrants killed or missing in shipwrecks off Tunisia since the start of the year. More than 1,300 died or disappeared in 2023.
What the figures show
National Guard data for January through May 2024 shows 462 bodies recovered, down from 714 in the same months of 2023. Rescues went the other way: 30,281 migrants were saved in 2024 against 21,652 the year before.
Money has been part of the response. In September 2023, the European Commission pledged €127 million ($132 million) in aid to Tunisia under a memorandum of understanding covering migration and other issues. Anadolu notes that Tunisian authorities announce thwarted departure attempts nearly every week, and describes the country as facing worsening economic and political crises.
Sources
- 27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: Civil defence
- 27 sub-Saharan African migrants die off Tunisia’s eastern coast
