TUNIS — More than
13,000 Tunisian migrants have reached Italy by sea since the start of the year,
almost a fifth of them minors, a Tunisian rights group said on Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The
Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) said more than 500 clandestine
migrants have also perished or gone missing off the Tunisian coast over the
same period.
It added that
some 2,635 minors — around half of them unaccompanied — and 624 women were
among the Tunisians who reached Italy.
“The migration
crisis continues despite the silence of institutions and ministries, and the
presidency of the republic is responsible,” FTDES spokesperson Romdhane Ben
Amor told journalists in Tunis.
People fleeing
violence and poverty across Africa and beyond have long used Tunisia, just
125km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, as a launchpad for maritime bids to
reach Europe.
But as a
long-running economic crisis grinds more people into poverty, growing numbers
of Tunisians themselves are making such attempts.
This year’s
figure of 13,742 Tunisians reaching Italian shores is up by 11 percent on the
same period last year, the FTDES said.
Migration
attempts tend to surge in the summer months, and this year June was the peak
month with over 1,400 arrivals.
Also on Tuesday,
the Tunisian coast guard said it had thwarted 34 migration attempts and
“rescued” 554 migrants the previous night.
In recent months,
the interior ministry has regularly announced the capsizing of boats and rescue
operations involving clandestine migrants off the Tunisian coast.
The
EU’s Frontex
border agency says more than 42,500 migrants used the central Mediterranean
route between January and July, up 44 percent compared with the first seven
months of 2021.
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