TUNIS: A judicial official told Reuters on Sunday that at least four migrants perished and 51 were missing when a migrant ship sank off Tunisia’s Kerkennah island, adding that all of the migrants onboard were from Sub-Saharan Africa.
From January 1 to July 20, this year, the Tunisian coast guard retrieved 901 remains of drowned migrants off its shore, according to the country’s interior minister, an unprecedented number of casualties along the country’s coastlines.
The North African country is dealing with a record wave of migration this year, as well as frequent sinkings of boats carrying migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Italian shores.
Tunisia has surpassed Libya as the principal departure point for migrants escaping poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East in search of a better life in Europe.
Source: Reuters