2023-09-13 14:53:15
A shipwreck caused the death of a woman and three children on Tuesday off the coast of Sfax, in east-central Tunisia. Twenty-one people, all Tunisian, were rescued by the coast guard. A few hours later, a five-month-old baby drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
A boat capsized following leaving the coast of Sfax, in east-central Tunisia, on Tuesday September 12, according to the spokesperson for the city court, Faouzi Masmoudi. A woman and three children drowned in the shipwreck and 21 people, all Tunisians, were rescued by the coast guard.
Departures from Tunisia to Italy have increased this summer, and have increased further in recent days. On Tuesday alone, more than 5,000 exiles, spread across around a hundred canoes, arrived in Lampedusa.
Enough, it’s time to do a concrete analysis of the uncontrolled flows towards #Lampedusa. They are not numbers #migrants = Exceptional people. We are now at around 125,000 landings since the beginning of the year, more or less the same as in 2016. But then there wasn’t so much chaos on the island: why? ???????? pic.twitter.com/u1riX7h5Cu
— Angela Caponnetto (@AngiKappa) September 13, 2023
Images posted on social networks show several boats waiting to dock on the Italian island. In other videos, we see a Red Cross team throwing bottles of water towards dozens of exiles gathered on the pier.
Death of a baby off the coast of Lampedusa
The reception center in Lampedusa alone accommodated nearly 7,000 people on Wednesday morning, with a capacity of 1,000 places. At the start of the morning, around 800 migrants were transferred to Sicily and rotations should continue to help relieve congestion in the hotspot. The island’s mayor, Filippo Mannino, urged the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni to take “urgent measures” to manage the flow.
More than 5,000 migrants arrived in Lampedusa in one day Tuesday September 12, 2023 (archives). Credit: Archyde.com
“We have never seen anything like this before, with dozens and dozens of small boats escorted by rescue units in front of the port,” he said, calling for the army to intervene.
Chaotic scenes also took place on the open sea. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a boat with 46 migrants overturned off the coast of Lampedusa. According to the local press, the boat capsized when the coast guard arrived. All the exiles who fell into the water were rescued, but a five-month-old baby died in the accident.
Increase in arrivals in Italy
Since the start of the year, more than 116,000 people have landed in Italy, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The number of arrivals has never been this high since 2016.
This year, Tunisia has become the main country of departure for migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean. Among them, sub-Saharan migrants increased following a speech in February by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed denouncing the arrival of illegal “hordes of migrants” who had come, according to him, to “change the demographic composition” of his country. In July, many others tried to leave for Italy following hundreds of Africans were driven out of Sfax, following the death of a Tunisian on July 3 in a brawl between migrants and residents.
>> To (re)read: Sub-Saharans flee en masse from violence in Tunisia, sea departures from Sfax explode
Thousands of other exiles were at the same time expelled by security forces to desert and uninhabited areas on the borders with Libya, to the east, and Algeria, to the west. At least 27 people have died in the Tunisian-Libyan desert, and 73 others are missing.
Sub-Saharan Africans are not the only ones wanting to go into exile in Europe. Every year, thousands of Tunisians also take to the sea to escape the political and economic crisis in the country.
But the road to Europe remains particularly deadly. Since the start of the year, more than 2,000 people have died in the central Mediterranean trying to reach European shores, according to the IOM. This is more than for the whole of 2022 when a little more than 1,400 exiles died drowning in these waters.
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#Woman #children #die #shipwreck #Tunisia
