Twenty migrants are missing after a new shipwreck off Tunisia

Twenty migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Tunisia on Friday, and 17 others have been rescued, a court spokesman in the central-eastern city of Sfax said.

According to testimonies collected by the judiciary which started the investigation, these 37 migrants “had left the coast when their boat sank on Friday afternoon” and only 17 could be saved, spokesman Fauzi Mashmoudi explained.

It is at least the sixth wreck since early Marchaccording to an AFP tally, and in these maritime accidents off the coast of Tunisia at least a hundred people have died or are missing.

The spokesman clarified that he was informed on Friday night about the new wreck and that an investigation has been launched into the circumstances of the accident.

On Friday, the National Guard announced it had rescued or prevented “14,406 people, including 13,138 from sub-Saharan Africa, the rest Tunisians,” in the first three months of the year — more than five times the number recorded during the same period in 2022. .

The numbers for 2023 show “a very big increase because there are many more departures,” National Guard spokesman Houssem Djebabli told AFP.

Almost all the interceptions of migrant boats and rescues in 2023 they took place in the areas of Sfax, the country’s second largest city.

Tunisia, some parts of whose coastline is less than 150 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa, very regularly records attempts by migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, to leave for Italy.

The departures have intensified following an incendiary speech by Tunisian President Kais Sayed on February 21, who attributed the increase in migration flows from sub-Saharan Africa to a conspiracy to change the demographic makeup of his country and blamed irregular migrants. for the rise in crime.