Tunisian coast guard said it recovered 14 bodies of immigrants off the coast of Djerba, on Wednesday. This raised the number of migrants dying off Tunisia’s coasts in the last two days to 43.
There has been a remarkable increase in migrant boats heading towards Italy.
Coast guards on Tuesday, retrieved 22 bodies off the coast of Sfax, and 7 other bodies off the coast of Gabes.
Fethi Bakkouche, prosecutor at the court in Medenine, said that “bodies began to appear near the coast of the island of Djerba since Friday”.
“The toll reached 14 bodies,” Bakkouche said, adding that they were irregular immigrants.
Most of them had come from sub-Saharan African countries, he said, and one was an Egyptian man identified by the passport he was carrying.
In 2023, at least 2,498 people died or went missing while attempting to cross the central Mediterranean route. This shows a 75-percent increase from the previous year, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration.