“Our priority is to save lives”, says Commander Chamtouri, after 24 hours spent intercepting and rescuing candidates for illegal emigration, who left between Wednesday and Thursday from around the port city of Sfax, Tunisia. .

Sfax is this year the epicenter of attempts to cross the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coast, located, at the closest point, less than 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa.

While a National Guard zodiac brings back dozens of migrants to a big speedboat which spotted them thanks to radars, Commander Mouhamed Borhen Chamtouri explains to AFP that the “very first priority is to save lives human”.

More than 1,800 people, according to the United Nations, have died since January in shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean, the deadliest migration route in the world, more than double last year.

In Tunisia, a shipwreck departing from Sfax last weekend left at least 11 dead and 44 missing.

“There is no doubt about it. You have seen during these 24 hours that we have made several rescues. There have been three boats broken down and the operations have not been easy for us”, adds -he.

The NGO Human Rights Watch criticized in a report, on July 19, the sometimes muscular intervention conditions of the coastguards, denouncing “dangerous actions” on their part.

As of June 20, the Tunisian National Guard said it had intercepted 34,290 migrants over six months, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 9,217 over the same period of 2022.

While AFP accompanied them, units in Sfax intercepted 216 migrants, including 75 Tunisians, the rest being sub-Saharan nationals.

They had left separately on six boats, the sub-Saharans on iron boats, overloaded with women and children.

When the zodiac sent by the flagship approaches their fragile boat, the Africans begin to cry and implore the guards to let them go. A young Ivorian says he is “on his seventh attempt”, saying he is ready to start over by working in the informal economy to pay for the crossing.

According to recent official figures, about 80,000 sub-Saharan Africans reside in Tunisia, many of them illegally.

The departures of African migrants have accelerated after a speech on February 21 by Tunisian President Kais Saied denouncing the arrival of “hordes of illegal migrants” who, according to him, have “changed the demographic composition” of his country.

After the death on July 3 of a Tunisian in a brawl between migrants and locals, hundreds of Africans were driven out of Sfax, Tunisia’s second city. Many have decided to attempt the crossing.

Nearly 94,000 migrants have arrived since the beginning of the year on the Italian coasts, according to Italian statistics, more than double compared to the same period of 2022, from Tunisia and Libya.

Since the beginning of August, “in just 10 days”, Sfax units have intercepted “about 3,000 migrants, 90% of whom are sub-Saharans and 10% Tunisians”, continues Commander Chamtouri.

Tunisia, in the grip of serious financial difficulties and shortages of certain products, is also going through a deep political crisis since the coup by which President Saied seized all the powers on July 25, 2021. About twenty Opponents, including well-known figures, have been imprisoned since February.

The European Union, pushed by the Italy of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, and Tunisia concluded a “strategic partnership” in mid-July which includes 105 million euros to help the North African country. to combat illegal immigration.

This envelope includes 15 million intended to finance the “voluntary return” of 6,000 sub-Saharan migrants from Tunisia to their countries of origin.

This pact coincided with the “expulsion” since the beginning of July by Tunisia of “more than 2,000 African migrants” to desert or inhospitable areas on the borders with Libya and Algeria, according to a count of humanitarian sources.

After the agreement, Amnesty International accused Brussels “of focusing its funding on outsourcing border control rather than guaranteeing safe and legal routes”, deeming the EU “accomplice in the suffering” of migrants.

08/11/2023 12:47:17 – Sfax (Tunisia) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP