Twenty bodies and five survivors: that was the toll the Tunisian National Guard reported on Wednesday, December 18, after a migrant boat went down off Sfax.
The vessel had left Chebba the evening before. It ran into trouble roughly 13 miles from Sfax, according to InfoMigrants, though TheJournal.ie put the distance at about 25 kilometers and said the boat set out around 11 PM. The National Guard, which oversees the coastguard, said the wreck lay in waters near El Louza, north of Sfax. Its statement described the five rescued as migrants of sub-Saharan African origin.
Search teams were still working at the time of the report.
A second sinking in a week
This was the second major disaster off Tunisia in seven days. An earlier sinking, involving a boat with 42 people aboard, left nine dead and six missing, and the coastguard pulled 27 people from the water.
The numbers behind the route are stark. The Tunisian rights group FTDES counts “between 600 and 700” people dead or missing in Tunisian shipwrecks since the start of 2024. Around 140,000 people tried to reach Europe from Tunisia in 2023, InfoMigrants reported, a sharp rise on the year before.
Why Sfax
Tunisia has taken over from Libya as the main launch point for crossings to Europe, and Sfax is the busiest port of departure. The reason is geography. The Italian island of Lampedusa lies 150 kilometers away and is usually the first European landfall for those who make it.
Maritime Reporter, carrying Reuters copy, said Tunisia “has been hit by an unprecedented migration crisis.” The earlier wreck, the Thursday before, had produced nine bodies.
Sources
- Tunisia: At least 20 migrants die, five rescued as boat sinks
- Shipwreck off Tunisia Kills at Least 20
- 20 migrants die in shipwreck off Tunisia, five rescued: Coastguard
- Maritime Accident Report: Migrant Boat Sinking Near Tunisia (Maritime Reporter, carrying Reuters)
