Despite the government’s efforts, drowned migrants wash up on Tunisian beaches, crowd hospital corridors, and fill morgues.
Coastguard patrols return to Sfax with migrants who were stopped from undertaking the risky trek to Europe at sea in rickety, overcrowded boats.
According to Houssem Eddine Jebabli, a senior National Guard officer, the number of migrants entering the Mediterranean has grown, but the number leaving Tunisia has climbed, with more detained by coastguard operations than ever before.
The Coastguard apprehended 17,000 people at sea in the first four months of 2023, up from 3,000 in 2022.
The numbers increased after President Kais Saied’s February crackdown on Sub-Saharan African immigration. Racial attacks were reported by migrants.
Let us go! “Your president expelled us, but now you are stopping us from leaving,” shouted Ibrahim, an Ivory Coast man brought onto a Coastguard ship with his wife and two infant children after being stranded at sea.
“We were evicted from our home, and people threw stones at our house,” he said as to why they fled Tunisia. African migrants interviewed after their boats were halted echoed his sentiments.
Within minutes after boarding Coastguard Ship 3505 at Sfax, the captain saw a suspected migrant boat on the radar going towards Lampedusa, Italy’s main migrant destination.
As crowded boats emerged in the darkness, some with children, some migrants begged to continue their journey. Others resisted arrest.
Migrants tossed metal bars at the Coastguard, fighting with sticks, and threatening to jump overboard on one boat. The Coastguard used poles to break another engine.
According to migrant rights groups, removing engines renders boats rudderless and susceptible to storms.
Jebabli, a National Guard officer, denied harming migrants, claiming that Coastguards were more endangered at sea when stopping migrant boats.
To quell 200 furious migrants’ requests to sail to Italy onboard the main ship, the captain fired a weapon into the air.
The confiscated boat engines were thrown toward the ten Coastguards. Others threatened to commit suicide. One man jumped into the river and was saved.
The cost of an illegal journey is decreasing as migrants purchase inexpensive one-way aluminum boats instead of Tunisian fishing vessels.
According to a police spokesperson, migrants are now splitting the $1,000 boat and engine cost to get to Italy.
According to a resident of Sfax’s Jebiniana neighborhood, people near the beach are building metal boats for 2,000 dinars and selling them for 20,000.
Five victims were discovered on the coast of Sfax, including a little kid wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Four more were discovered nearby by the Coastguard.
The deceased were kept in bags on the corridor floors outside the little morgue of a big metropolitan hospital. Patients are bothered by the stench. “We can’t take it anymore,” a nurse said.
Regional health chief Hatem Cherif announced the establishment of a new migrant cemetery. “We bury dozens of people every day,” he went on.
