SFAX, Tunisia: Bodies of drowned migrants wash up most days on Tunisian beaches, lie unclaimed in hospital corridors and fill morgues, evidence of a surge in people seeking to cross the Mediterranean that has been accelerated by a government crackdown.
Coastguard patrols return to the port of Sfax crammed with migrants stopped at sea in flimsy, overcrowded boats from making the perilous voyage to what they hope will be a better life in Europe.
The number of migrants embarking upon the Mediterranean has risen overall, but the number leaving Tunisia has exploded, with more caught by coastguard patrols than in any previous year, senior National Guard official Houssem Eddine Jebabli said.
The Coastguard told Reuters it has stopped 17,000 people at sea in the first four months of 2023, compared to 3,000 in the same period of 2022.
The numbers spiked after a crackdown on migrants from Sub-Saharan African countries in February that President Kais Saied announced using language the African Union condemned as racialised. Many migrants reported suffering racist attacks.
“Let us go! Your president expelled us but now you are stopping us leaving,” shouted a man from the Ivory Coast, who gave his name as Ibrahim, taken aboard a Coastguard ship with his wife and two infant children after they were stopped at sea.
“We were evicted from our home, people threw stones at our house,” he said, explaining why they had to leave Tunisia. His comments were echoed by other African migrants Reuters met after their boats were intercepted.
Source: CNA
