At least 17 Tunisian nationals have been missing at sea since their boat left Bizerte in Tunisia on February 5. A rights group says the number of migrant deaths and disappearances off Tunisia has reached an all-time high.
After another migrant boat was reported to have disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea last week, Tunisia's coast guard launched a search operation. So far none of the 17 people thought to have been on board has been found, a coast guard spokesperson said on Monday (February 12). Among the missing people is a five-year-old child.
The boat left the port of Bizerte, at the northernmost tip of Africa, on February 5, bound for Italy. On Saturday (February 10), the families of the missing held a demonstration in central Bizerte, demanding that authorities search for their loved ones.
This incident, if the boat cannot be found, is the latest in a string of migrant boat accidents in waters off Tunisia.
Bodies found last Thursday from another shipwreck
Last Thursday (February 8), Tunisian authorities said the bodies of 13 people whose boat had capsized off the east coast near Sfax had been found. 27 others remained missing, with only two people confirmed to have survived the wreck. All of the 42 migrants on the boat were Sudanese, a Tunisian official told the Reuters news agency.
Another group of around 40 Tunisian nationals went missing at sea in January after setting out in a boat from Sfax on the night of January 10. Relatives have held weekly protests demanding more information about the missing, who were mainly teenagers from the town of El Hencha, according to local media.
The Tunisian national guard reportedly began search operations five days after the boat’s departure, at the families' request.
Tunisians second-largest group arriving in Italy
The number of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean from north Africa continues to rise, despite poor weather conditions. The majority of those who managed to reach Italy last year were Guineans (18,204), while Tunisian nationals made up the second-largest group (17,304), according to Italian government figures.
The increase in the number of Tunisians leaving the country is said to be due to the worsening economic and political situation, which has hit young people especially hard. World Bank figures show that around 37% of people aged 15-24 are out of work.
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As the number of departures increases, the number of recorded fatalities on the central Mediterranean route has also multiplied, with around 2,500 known deaths and disappearances in 2023, a 75% increase on the previous year, according to the UN migration agency, IOM. The true death toll is likely to be higher, since many migrant departures are not reported.
Record number of dead and missing off Tunisia
Most migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean set out from Tunisia. Ramadan Ben Amor, an official at the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) told Reuters on Tuesday (February 13) that the number of migrants reported dead or missing off the Tunisian coast last year had reached a record 1,313 people. This figure represented about 75% of the total number of deaths and disappearances recorded off the coasts of Italy, Libya and Malta, he said.
Large numbers of people who depart in unseaworthy boats from Tunisia are 'intercepted' at sea and brought back by the coast guard. During the first 11 months of 2023, the National Guard picked up about 70,000 people, more than double the figure for the same period in 2022. Around three-quarters of those intercepted came from countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
While migrants intercepted at sea were previously released in Tunisia after disembarkation, Human Rights Watch reported in 2023 that authorities had pushed some to the Algerian border following their return to Tunisia. The rights group linked what it said may mark a "dangerous shift" in Tunisian policy to a deal signed by the EU last July increasing funding for Tunisian security forces to prevent migrants from reaching Europe.
With Reuters and AFP