ROME, Aug 10 (AP): Forty-one people are believed dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off
Tunisia in rough seas, the Italian Red Cross and rescue groups reported, citing four survivors who
were rescued and brought to land on Wednesday.
The survivors reported having left Sfax, Tunisia, on a metal boat with a total of 45 people on Aug. 3.
About six hours into their voyage, a huge wave overturned the vessel, RAI state television reported.
The Red Cross said in a statement that the four survived using inner tubes and managed to climb
onto another empty vessel nearby, evidence of the large number of boats setting out from Sfax and
the rough seas that hit the area in recent days, causing several other capsizings too.
Photos released by the Sea-Watch humanitarian rescue group taken by its monitoring aircraft
showed the four survivors waving for help from the boat and making their way to a commercial
tanker, the Maltese-flagged Rimona. The migrants rescued by the Rimona were then transferred
onto an Italian coast guard vessel which brought them to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on
Wednesday, said Sea-Watch’s Paul Wagner.
European Union border agency Frontex said that it had spotted a boat adrift in the Libyan search and
rescue region and “informed all national rescue coordination centers in the region” as well as a
mayday call given it was an emergency. Sea-Watch flew to the location, spotted the vessel and
informed the closest merchant vessel, which was the Rimona, Wagner said.
According to the GPS location shared by Sea-Watch, the survivors were spotted inside the Libyan
search and rescue zone around 66 kilometers (40 miles) from Tunisia and about 200 kilometers (125
miles) from Lampedusa.
The International Organization of Migration said that the shipwreck brings to more than 1,800 the
number of people dead and missing in the central Mediterranean, the most active and dangerous
migration route in the world.
The Red Cross said the conditions of the four survivors, being cared for on Lampedusa, were good
and that they would be transferred to the Italian mainland soon. The group said that three of the
four claim to be minors, while the fourth is an adult male, all from Ivory Coast and Guinea. U.N.
agencies, however, reported there was only one minor among them.
A doctor on Lampedusa who treated the four, Dr. Adrian Chiaramonte, said they had sustained
“small wounds” and were suffering from dehydration, but “nothing major.”
“They said one boat saw them and kept on going. An hour later they saw a copter, then the oil
tanker came” and rescued them, Chiaramonte told RaiNews24, adding that the survivors reported
that altogether around 15 people had rudimentary lifesavers. No bodies have been recovered.
Rough seas over the weekend resulted in a series of shipwrecks and dramatic rescue attempts to
save survivors. Italian authorities rescued dozens of migrants from the sea and from rocky reefs off
Lampedusa, but at least 30 people were reported missing by survivors from capsized vessels. Eight
bodies washed ashore back in Sfax.
Libya’s lawless coasts used to be the main departure point for migrant smuggling operations. But in
recent months, Tunisia’s eastern coast, notably the port city of Sfax, has become the main launching
point for migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, to get to Italy and other parts of Europe in small
boats.
Recent departures may have been fueled by the fact that Tunisian authorities are increasingly
cracking down on Black migrants. Tunisia’s President Kais Saied’s has promoted unfounded remarks
that sub-Saharan migrants are part of a plot to alter the country’s identity and demographics fueling
tensions between locals and Black foreigners.
Since early July hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants have reportedly been rounded up from coastal
cities and dumped in deserted border areas with Libya or Algeria — countries with their own long
track records of grave human rights violations, abuses against migrants and collective deportations.
Tunisia’s interior minister has conceded that small groups are pushed back into the desert border
areas with Libya and Algeria, but has denied mistreatment.
Tunisian authorities estimate that around 17,000 sub-Saharan people are concentrated in the Sfax
area currently.
According to the Interior Ministry, more than 93,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year,
more than twice the 45,000 who arrived during the same period in 2022. The top nationalities of
those arriving are from Guinea, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Tunisia.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose right-wing government includes the anti-migrant League
party, has galvanized the EU to join it in efforts to coax Tunisia to crack down on smuggling
operations, but the boats continue to set off.
Calls poured in Wednesday for Europe to develop safe and legal pathways of migration to prevent
future deaths, echoing a refrain that follows the frequent incidents of deaths in the Mediterranean
of desperate migrants seeking better, safer lives in Europe.
In a statement, the U.N. refugee agency, children’s agency and IOM said the steel-hulled ship was
particularly inappropriate for a trip of this kind, particularly given the “prohibitive weather and sea
conditions.”
“This highlights the absolute lack of scruples of traffickers who in this way expose migrants and
refugees to extremely high risks of death at sea,” the agencies said.
