Over the weekend, more than 20 people migrants drowned off the coast of Tunisia and Libya on their way to Europe. A representative of the authorities in the Tunisian city of Sfax says there is not enough space left to bury the drowned.
Tunisian authorities said 17 bodies were recovered on Sunday off the Tunisian coast after four boats capsized with migrants on board. Mourad Turki, a spokesman for authorities in Sfax, said the boats had left the port city on Friday night.
Among those drowned were reportedly a woman and at least one baby. Turki believes the number of dead could still rise. Survivors reported that there were between 30 and 32 people on board each of the four vessels, he said. Most were from Ivory Coast, Mali and Somalia.
The Tunisian navy said it rescued 98 survivors from the four small boats. A spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard in Sfax, Ali Ayari, said the boats were on their way to Italy. According to news reports, 155 migrants were arrested in Tunisia on Sunday, and 76 migrants were rescued near Mahdia, about 100 kilometers north of Sfax.
Apparently, the number of dead off the Tunisian coast has increased to such an extent that, as Turki told dpa, there is hardly any space left in cemeteries. Sources at the Sfax hospital say that there are about 50 drowned people in the morgue there.
Six more dead in boat accident in Libya
Also over the weekend, at least six migrants reportedly drowned off the Libyan coast. According to Libyan authorities, 540 more migrants were arrested on Sunday alone. Most of them were from Bangladesh. Migrants in Libya are locked up in notorious torture camps where they are subjected to abuse, enslavement, starvation and sexual violence.
According to IOM, at least 500 people have died on the central Mediterranean route this year. The real number is likely to be far higher, as many accidents go unrecorded.
