TUNIS: A twenty year old man and an infant were found dead late Saturday as a migrant boat sank off the coast of Gabes, a port located on the southeastern side of Tunis.
According to the National Coast Guard service, twenty Tunisian migrants were trapped in rough waters when they were just over a hundred meters away from shore.
The rescuers rushed to the spot and were able to save 13 while the search is carried out for the remaining five.
“The investigation has also been ordered by the authorities for looking into the accident,” according to a statement by the Coast Guard.
In the past few days a number of boats have sunk as people try to make it to Europe this year alone so far has witnessed over 1800 casualties in ships getting sunk or destroyed on the migration route. The route usually take by the migrants in Sfax the departure point of operations towards Europe from the Mediterranean.
There is 140 kilometre distance between Gabes and Sfax where the tragedy happened.
The troubled waters in the Mediterranean a few days ago witnessed quite a number of boats getting shipwrecked resulting in a number of tragedies.
Many were rescued but a lot many never survived to tell the tale. A few days ago 41 migrants drowned while four survived in the same region. The quest for better life and future continues same as the migration crisis from the region goes on.
According to Coast Guards over 34000 till June 30 were intercepted mostly representing African countries while the last years statistics were a little over 9000.
Tunisia the hot spot for migrants is facing extreme economic woes at the same time and President Kais Saied in his presidential speech not long ago termed the migrants as threat.
There have been a number of brawls between migrants and the locals resulting in Tunisian getting killed by stab wounds in July.
According to information gathered Italy gave a figure of around 95,000 migrants landed on its shores earlier this year and its double the amount of people as compared to last year.
European Union and Tunisia signed an agreement early July in which Tunisia has been provided with 105 million Euros to combat human smugglers and prevent migrants to take the death defying journey.
