TUNIS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th March, 2023) At least 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have drowned in the sea over the past 24 hours off the coast of Tunisia while trying to cross to Europe, the spokesman for the General Administration of the National Guard, Husam Al-Din Al-Jabali, said.
The cases in which the migrants drowned are unrelated and occurred in different locations, Al-Jabali said on Sunday, adding that in total the Tunisian Coast Guard has recorded a total of three shipwrecks of boats carrying migrants at sea over the past 24 hours. According to the spokesman, only some of them were rescued.
On Thursday, the Tunisian National Guard said that within a day, its units thwarted 30 irregular migration attempts that were bound for Italy via the coasts of the southern Tunisian city of Sfax and the eastern city of Chebba. In the process, 2,034 illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were detained, including nine Tunisian nationals.
Over the past few years, Europe has seen an influx of migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in their home countries in Africa and the middle East. Many asylum seekers die in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach Europe.
