At least 12 people have died and another 10 were missing after four boats carrying 120 African migrants and refugees sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, a security official told Reuters on Saturday.
Ali Aayari, a lieutenant colonel in the Tunisian Coast Guard, added that 98 people were rescued off the coast of Sfax.The coastline of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe.
The interior ministry said this week that it had arrested more than 20,000 migrants and refugees off its coast last year. At least 15,000 reached the coast of Italy in 2021.
In recent months, dozens of people have drowned off the Tunisian coast, with an increase in the frequency of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya towards Italy.
Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing in recent years.
Figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that more than 123,000 migrants arrived in Italy in 2021, compared with more than 95,000 in 2020.
In February,2022, Italy’s coastguard has rescued nearly 600 people packed into overcrowded fishing boats in bad weather off the coast of Calabria, finding one person dead.
The 573 refugees and migrants were found overnight on board “two overloaded fishing boats and left at the mercy of waves with unfavourable weather conditions that were expected to worsen significantly”, the coastguard service said in a statement on Tuesday.A large ship and three patrol boats aided in the rescue, which took place about 110km (70 miles) off Cape Spartivento at the southern tip of Calabria, it said.
Among those recovered was a body of a person who “had already been dead for a few days”, according to witnesses cited by the coastguard.