TUNIS: More than 1,300 illegal migrants died or went missing at sea while attempting to reach Europe from Tunisia last year, a Tunisian rights group said on Tuesday.
Islem Ghaarbi, a migration expert at the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, during a press conference said that 1,313 people died or missing off the Tunisian coast.
He said at least two thirds of the illegal migrants came from sub-Saharan Africa.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration said 2,498 people died or went missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2023.
Tunisia and Libya are the main north African points for thousands of illegal migrants who risk their lives every year to have a better lives in Europe.
The World Organization Against Torture last December, published a report in which it said migrants and refugees in Tunisia were facing institutional violence on daily basis, including arrests, forced displacements and expulsions toward the bordering areas.
The number of migrants from Tunisia increased after President Kais Saied last February said that hordes of illegal migrants pose a demographic threat to the country.
Last week, a court spokesman in the city of Monastir said the dead bodies of 13 Sudanese migrants who had left from the port of Sfax were found.
Tunisia’s worsening economy and the high unemployment rate have pushed more Tunisian migrants to seek better opportunities across the Mediterranean.
