612 sub-Saharan migrants rescued in several operations off Tunisia, eighteen drafted bodies

The Tunisia National Guard announced that it had rescued, on Sunday, 16 to Monday, March 17, 612 sub-Saharan migrants who were trying to reach Europe and drafted eighteen bodies from other immigration candidates from country in sub-Saharan Africa.

The survivors were rescued during several operations off the Sfax region (Center-East) after their boats capsized or broke down. Country guard units “Have managed to make several separate attempts to classify the European space clandestinely”said the management of the National Guard on Monday in a statement.

Video images broadcast by coast guards attached to the National Guard show exhausted people, sometimes equipped with large black buoys, including women and children, some of whom seem dead. On these images, we see at least a body floating in the sea, men, women and children in great distress on a larger boat, and others trying to swim to the Coast Guard ship. The clichés also show a woman who hoist with difficulty a child, the body very rigid and visibly lifeless, aboard the rescuers' boat. Other migrants, completely exhausted, drink water paid with caution by rescuers.

With Libya, Tunisia, whose coastline is in some places less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, has become in recent years the main starting point in North Africa migrants seeking to win Europe.

“Precarious and dangerous situation”

Thousands of sub -Saharans – from 20,000 to 25,000 according to humanitarian sources – have been piling up for months in makeshift camps, without drinking water, hygiene, nor medical care, in the middle of olive groves near villages like El Amra, about thirty kilometers north of Sfax, near the beaches from which are regularly clandatine departures. Many of them were driven from Sfax, others have arrived recently.

Tunisian internet users have recently published calls, for some to racist hints, so that the authorities evacuate them, complaining to see their fields occupied by hundreds of tents, with an accumulation of garbage on their properties.

The World Organization against Torture (OMCT) denounced in a report published in January the fact that the sub -Saharans meet “Often deprived of accommodation solutions and left in a precarious and dangerous situation”.

There are many in Tunis and in its periphery to indulge in informal jobs in construction or in catering, or to begged to try to collect funds to pay smugglers and leave the country.

Increase in interceptions of clandestine boats

According to a UNICEF press release published in early January, the number of migrants who died or disappeared in the Mediterranean “Exceeded 2,200 in 2024, including nearly 1,700 lost lives” On the dangerous central Mediterranean road, between North Africa and the Italian coast. “The majority of these people flee violent conflicts and poverty”recalled the UN organization.

Following a campaign triggered by a speech with xenophobic accents of the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saïed, in the spring of 2023, thousands of migrants from sub -Saharan Africa had been repatriated by their countries, while attempts at clandestine emigration to Europe had accelerated.

Under the leadership of Italy, the European Union concluded, in July 2023, a “Partnership” With Tunisia providing for a budget aid of 150 million euros and the granting of 105 million euros to help the country fight against irregular immigration.

These aids led to an increase in interceptions of clandestine boats in 2024 and a clear reduction in arrivals in Italy ( – 80 % over a year in 2024 compared to 2023 with 19,246 arrivals from Tunisia).