The Tunisian Navy on Saturday rescued 163 migrants, mostly Tunisians, including women and children, off Sfax (central-east), the defense ministry announced on Sunday.
“As part of a joint operation with the coast guard,” the Tunisian Defense Ministry “rescued 163 illegal immigrants (one Moroccan and 162 Tunisians) on Saturday” off the coast of Sfax province, the ministry said in a press release.
Among the people trying to immigrate were 9 women and 16 children who were found in a boat 12 kilometers off the coast of Sfax, from where many refugees and migrants depart for the coasts of European countries, mainly Italy.
The migrants said they ranged in age from 8 to 48 and said they had left the shores of Sfax on Friday night to Saturday “to smuggle maritime borders to Europe”, according to the ministry.
They were taken to the fishing port of Sfax, where they were picked up by the port.
Italy is one of the main gateways to Europe for migrants boarding boats in North African countries, especially Tunisia and Libya, where departures increased dramatically in 2021.
Tunisia, just 200 kilometers off the coast of Sicily, has seen its economy hit hard by the new coronavirus pandemic and plunged into a political crisis following the ouster of the government and the appropriation of executive power by President Kais Sagent. July 25th.
Destabilized after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya has been a platform for tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to reach Europe off the Italian coast some 300 kilometers away.
More than 55,000 migrants arrived in Italy in 2021, compared to just under 30,000 in 2020, according to official figures from the Italian authorities.
According to the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, in the first nine months of 2021, the Tunisian Coast Guard intercepted about 19,500 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean.
Some 1,300 migrants have been reported missing or drowned in the Mediterranean in 2021, according to statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
Skai
