Tunisian coast guard recovers bodies of 14 more migrants who died in boat sinking

On Wednesday, the coast guard announced that a boat carrying migrants had sunk off the coast of Sfax governorate and ten bodies had been recovered.

The 14 victims included six women and the 20-year-old Tunisian captain who was driving the boat with them, the Coast Guard said in a statement on Thursday.

The search for those missing at sea continues.

Fawzi al-Masmoudi, the official spokesman for the Sfax court, said that “the bodies were stuck at the bottom of the sunken boat and were pulled out by the efforts of divers.”

The emigrants set off from the coast of Sfax province in a large wooden boat bound for European shores.

One of the bodies recovered on Wednesday was that of an infant.

In a related context, the coast guard in Sousse Governorate (East) rescued 41 Tunisians, including 5 women and 9 children, after their boat capsized, according to the same report.

The pace of attempts to cross the Mediterranean by migrants headed for the Italian coast has increased significantly in recent times with the improvement of weather conditions.

Four migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died and 23 went missing after drowning off the coast of Tunisia on Friday and Saturday, Al-Masmoudi said earlier.

So, since the beginning of March, according to the AFP census, the number of drowning incidents has risen to eight, resulting in more than 100 people dead or missing on the Tunisian coast.

The latest tragedy occurred on March 26, when the bodies of 29 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were recovered off the coast of Tunisia after three boats capsized, while 11 others were rescued.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Dürk on Thursday expressed his concern over the “unsafe situation” of migrants trying to cross the central Mediterranean. A safe place.”

The first quarter of the year hit the highest number of migrants across the Mediterranean since January to March 2017, the director-general of the United Nations Organization for Migration, Antonio Vittorino, announced on Wednesday. Died on these crossings.