At least 16 dead, dozens missing after migrant shipwrecks off Tunisia and Western Sahara

At least 16 migrants have lost their lives in shipwrecks off the coasts of Tunisia and Western Sahara, said the officials, on Monday (August 7). This comes amid a spike in the number of Europe-bound central Mediterranean migrant crossings from North Africa which is said to be the world’s deadliest, according to the United Nations.

Death toll in Tunisia migrant wreck rises to 11, 42 missing

Tunisian authorities said that they recovered seven more bodies believed to be of migrants who drowned in a shipwreck off Tunisia, raising the death toll to 11. They also said that only two out of the previously reported 44 people missing were rescued.

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This comes a day after a judicial official, as per Reuters, said the migrants aboard the boat, which sank off the country’s Kerkennah island near the port of Sfax, were from sub-Saharan African countries.

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From the beginning of this year to July 20, the Tunisian coast guard recovered an unprecedented number of 901 bodies of drowned migrants off its coast, according to the country’s interior ministry. Additionally, 34,290 migrants had been rescued or intercepted, most of them coming from sub-Saharan African countries, as per Tunisian officials.

Local court spokesman Faouzi Masmoudi told AFP that coastguard units were searching for more survivors.

Shipwreck off Western Sahara

Officials in Morocco said that they found the bodies of five migrants, all from Senegal,reported AFP. They also managed to rescue 189 people after their boat capsized off Western Sahara.

A military source told Morocco’s state-owned MAP news agency, that the five bodies as well as 11 migrants in “critical condition” were transferred to a hospital in Dakhla, the disputed Western Sahara’s second city on the Atlantic coast.

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The media report, citing the source, also said that the boat had embarked from “a country located south of the kingdom” and was headed towards Spain’s Canary Islands. However, it was discovered off the coast of Guerguart, just north of Mauritania and was in a “difficult situation,” as per the media report.

The migrants who were rescued, including at least one woman, were taken to Dakhla on Sunday and handed over to Moroccan authorities, said the Moroccan news agency citing the source.

Deadliest migration route

The North African coast has become a major gateway for illegal migrants and asylum seekers from several parts of the continent to embark on what has been called the world’s deadliest Mediterranean migrant crossing route in the hopes of a better life in Europe, often on rickety boats which are prone to accidents.

(With inputs from agencies)

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