TUNIS, Feb 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thirteen Sudanese migrants died in a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia on Thursday while 27 others remain missing, a Monastir court spokesperson Farid Ben Jha said.
The court official revised an initial count of 17 missing, adding that only two out of the 42 migrants who were on board the boat survived after leaving from Jebiniana, a small coastal town near Sfax.
He said an investigation was opened, adding that the migrants were likely “exploited in a human trafficking case or in the formation of a criminal group to reach Europe illegally.”
The victims were all asylum seekers from war-torn Sudan who had registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency. They boarded a fragile metal boat made of scraps hastily welded together, according to the investigation’s first findings.
The search for the missing passengers was still underway.
Tunisia and Libya are the main departure points for thousands of irregular migrants who risk their lives every year in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.
During the first 11 months of 2023, Tunisian authorities intercepted 69,963 irregular migrants, more than double the figure for the same period in 2022, according to statistics shared by the National Guard.
More than 2,270 people died attempting to cross the central Mediterranean in 2023, a 60 percent increase on the previous year, according to the International Organization for Migration. — NNN-AGENCIES
