Since April, not a day goes by without dead bodies washing up on Sfax’s beaches. The first five months of the year have been the deadliest since 2017: 1,037 people have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean, according to UNHCR.
At the same time, the darkness is high and the doctors of the Red Crescent are working hard to identify the bodies.
– It has increased a lot. Among other things because so many people come here, says Anas Hakim from Red Crescent.
The Russian Wagner group is accused
Most asylum seekers and the migrants who make the boat journey from Tunisia come from sub-Saharan Africa. Ivory Coast and Guinea stand out – countries where the Russian Wagner Group has increased its presence, and is accused by the Italian government of deliberately driving people to flee to Europe.
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, at the beginning of June, the country had received roughly 50,400 people who arrived illegally by sea, compared to roughly 19,700 people during the same period last year.
Tunisia has become the main departure country
According to the UN migration agency, IOM, departures from Tunisia increased by 1100 percent between January and April, compared to the same period last year.
UNHCR lists several reasons: among them, persecution and abuse directed at dark-skinned people in Tunisia after the country’s president called them a threat to demographics.
– The political situation has forced many migrants to hurry and flee Tunisia regardless of circumstances and means of transport, says Romdhane Ben Amor at the Tunisian human rights organization FTDES.
According to FTDES, the new Italian law limiting rescue operations at sea has increased deaths in the Mediterranean.
– What interests Meloni is the number that was prevented from coming over and coming forward. Our priority is to reduce the number of dead and missing.
Mohammed Sidibé came to Tunisia as a 12-year-old, and dreams of earning money to go back to his family in Guinea – hear him tell in the clip.