TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The our bodies of 13 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have been discovered washed up on Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast this week as authorities battle to stem unauthorized boat crossings from North Africa to Europe.
Tunisia’s Coast Guard mentioned the our bodies have been recovered on Wednesday close to Mahdia, a coastal Tunisian city about 142 kilometers (88 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is nearer to North Africa than the Italian mainland.
Tunisia, together with neighboring Libya, have lengthy been the important thing launching pads for Europe, and hundreds of migrants attain Lampedusa in ramshackle boats yearly, together with many whose journeys are facilitated by smugglers.
Based on native court docket spokesperson Ferid Ben Jha, the our bodies have been all of males from sub-Saharan Africa and an investigation is underway to find out the place they got here from.
Tens of hundreds of individuals from as distant as Bangladesh try to make the harmful journey throughout the Mediterranean Sea yearly to achieve the shores of Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece. Many are fleeing poverty, warfare, local weather change or persecution.
Earlier in September, 5 our bodies have been recovered close to Monastir, Tunisia, together with that of a lady and a baby.
Lately, Tunisia has ramped up efforts to patrol its territorial waters with European funding and assist, resulting in a drop in migrant crossings and deaths.
Tunisia’s Nationwide Guard mentioned in June that from January by means of Might, authorities recovered our bodies of 462 migrants and intercepted greater than 30,000 migrants off Tunisia’s coast, in comparison with the identical interval final yr, when 714 our bodies have been recovered and almost 22,000 migrants have been intercepted.
Roughly 10,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boats from Tunisia within the first half of this yr, lower than a 3rd of the full that arrived in the identical interval in 2023, based on Italian authorities.
“The lower within the Central Mediterranean is basically because of preventive measures taken by the Tunisian, Libyan and Turkish authorities,” FRONTEX, the European Union’s border and coast guard company mentioned in a press release earlier this month.
The pattern is constant all through nearly all of routes to European Union international locations, the place unauthorized migration has dropped considerably this yr. Nevertheless, as border and maritime safety has been tightened within the Mediterranean, there was a spike in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago near the Africa’s Atlantic coast that’s more and more used as an alternate stepping stone to continental Europe.
The United Nations refugee company estimates that not less than 1,000 individuals die or go lacking every year at sea. A nongovernmental group, the Tunisian Discussion board for Financial and Social Rights, mentioned it counted greater than 1,300 useless or lacking off Tunisia in 2023.
Because the variety of migrants who attain Europe drops, the quantity caught in transit alongside the Tunisian shoreline has risen. Hundreds hoping to get on a ship to Europe, dwell in encampments on the outskirts of Tunisian cities and cities, the place tensions have soared between migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Tunisians and safety forces.