Migrant shipwreck off Tunisia leaves four dead, 51 missing

Masmoudi said authorities were investigating “whether there have been other shipwrecks in this area”.

As of July 20 this year, Tunisia’s interior ministry reported the recovery of 901 bodies from maritime accidents in the Mediterranean, and 34,290 migrants had been rescued or intercepted.

The majority of these migrants came from sub-Saharan African countries. The UN refugee agency UNHCR stated that nearly 90,000 migrants had arrived in Italy this year, with many of them departing from Tunisia or neighboring Libya.

The central Mediterranean migrant route from North Africa to Europe has been the most dangerous in the world, with over 20,000 fatalities since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.

In March and April, crossing attempts increased significantly after President Kais Saied made inflammatory remarks accusing sub-Saharan migrants of causing crime and posing a demographic threat to Tunisia, leading to a rise in xenophobic attacks against black African migrants and students. Many migrants have also faced job and housing losses.

Since early July, there have been incidents of hundreds of migrants being driven out of Sfax following a Tunisian man’s death in a confrontation with migrants.

Rights groups and international organizations have reported that Tunisian police have taken migrants to the desert or dangerous areas near the Libyan and Algerian borders, resulting in over 2,000 migrants being stranded, and at least 25 reported deaths in the Tunisian-Libyan border region since last month.