At least 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died off the Tunisian coast in three shipwrecks, the North African country’s coast guard announced on Sunday.
The coast guard found 29 bodies and also rescued “11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank,” according to a statement that reported three separate incidents. In one of them, a Tunisian fishing boat recovered 19 bodies after a boat sank some 58 km off the coast.
A coast guard patrol found eight bodies off the city of Mahdiya and rescued 11 migrants from an overturned boat headed for Italy. And another fishing boat found two other bodies off the coast of Sfax.
In recent weeks, dozens of migrants have died in shipwrecks and others have been reported missing, since Tunisian President Kais Saied’s violent speech against clandestine migration.
Following this speech on February 21, a large number of the 21,000 officially registered people from sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia, the majority in an irregular situation, lost their jobs and accommodation overnight.
Many African migrants arrive in Tunisia to later try to reach the European coasts, since some points on the Tunisian coast are less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
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