- Migrant Shipwrecks Claim Lives Off North African Coasts
- Perilous Journeys: North Africa’s Role as a Migration Hub
- Rising Toll: Tragic Consequences of Mediterranean Crossings
Officials reported on Monday that sixteen migrants perished in shipwrecks off the coasts of Tunisia and Western Sahara. As North Africa confronts an increase in sea crossings bound for Europe.
A significant portion of the North African coast has become a major entry point for irregular migrants and asylum seekers, predominantly from other parts of the continent, attempting perilous journeys in frequently rickety boats in search of a better life.
Local court official Faouzi Masmoudi said eleven migrants died in a shipwreck off Sfax, Tunisia’s second-largest city, up from four.
Masmoudi stated that 44 persons are missing and two were recovered from a boat carrying 57 sub-Saharan Africans.
Survivors of the sinking near Tunisia’s Kerkennah Islands in the Mediterranean Sea reported that the makeshift craft had left a beach north of the coastal city of Sfax over the weekend.
According to Masmoudi, coastguard units were scouring for additional survivors. The distance between Sfax and the Italian island of Lampedusa is approximately 130 kilometers (80 miles).
Authorities in Morocco reported the recovery of the corpses of five migrants, all from Senegal, and the rescue of 189 others after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara.
A military source told Rabat’s state-run MAP news agency that 11 migrants in “critical condition.” And five corpses were transferred to a hospital in Dakhla, the disputed Western Sahara’s second city on the Atlantic coast.
According to the source, the vessel left “a country located south of the kingdom” and was en route to the Canary Islands of Spain before being discovered off the coast of Guerguart, just north of Mauritania. It was in a “difficult situation,” according to the source.
Also the source claimed Moroccan police took the rescued migrants, including one woman, to Dakhla on Sunday.
Most hazardous migration route
Recently, the number of migrants who died crossing the Mediterranean to find a better life in Europe has soared.
Since 2014, more than 20,000 migrants have died attempting to traverse the central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
Survivors say at least 30 migrants are missing after two Sfax-departing vessels sank near Lampedusa last week.
Authorities in Tunisia discovered the bodies of 12 migrants who washed ashore between Friday and Sunday north of Sfax. However, it remained unclear if they were related to the shipwreck near the Kerkennah Islands, across from Sfax.
Masmoudi stated that authorities were investigating “whether other shipwrecks have occurred in this area.”
According to the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior, 901 bodies had been recovered from maritime incidents in the Mediterranean by July 20, while 34,290 migrants had been rescued or intercepted.
It was stated that most of them originated from sub-Saharan African nations.
The UN refugee agency reported that most migrants entering Italy this year came from Tunisia or Libya.
Following an incendiary speech by President Kais Saied, who claimed that “hordes” of sub-Saharan migrants were causing crime and posing a demographic threat to the predominantly Arab country, the number of crossing attempts increased in March and April.
Since Saied’s February remarks, xenophobic assaults against black African migrants. Also students have increased nationwide, and many migrants have lost their jobs and homes.
Since early July, hundreds of migrants have been removed from Sfax after a Tunisian man was killed in a scuffle.
According to rights groups and international organizations, Tunisian police transported migrants to the desert and other inhospitable areas near the Libyan and Algerian frontiers in the days that followed.
The previous month, humanitarian sources reported 2,000 migrants abandoned on the Tunisian-Libyan border, with at least 25 deaths.
