On Tuesday, the Tunisian Red Crescent announced that at least 23 African migrants drowned off the coast of Tunisia when trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, and 70 others were rescued.
At least 262 people (between 15 and 37 years old) were intercepted by the Tunisian navy and coast guard on Friday. The migrants were trying to reach Europe from Tunisia and Libya.
The official spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, Ramadan Ben Omar, told “JDD” that Tunisia was subjected to several pressures from the European side after the irregular migration crisis in 2020, in which Europe experienced an unprecedented influx of migrants from the southern Mediterranean.
He added that after the terrorist attack in November 2020, the Italian Foreign Ministry official announced the European Union’s intention to deploy naval and air forces to intercept boats carrying irregular migrants.
Ben omar explained that there was a previous cooperation program between Tunisia and the European Agency for Coastal Protection Frontex, represented in a virtual operations room to exchange information between the two parties regarding the movement of migrants in the Mediterranean.
Ben Omar said that the Tunisian navy has begun to intervene outside the territorial waters by order of the European side to prevent the arrival of migrant boats without knowing the destination, whether it is the Tunisian coast or other, indicating that the politicians’ submission to the pressures of the European side has forced the sea army into the task of guarding the European borders with Israeli technology, which will make it the subject of criticism. International organizations such as the Libyan Coast Guard, he said
The International Organization for Migration -Tunisia stands ready to support and provide its technical expertise to the Tunisian authorities and strives to enhance institutional capacities for effective migration management through capacity-building, migration and development activities, prevention of irregular migration and labour migration schemes. At the same time, IOM is developing new activities in border management, counter trafficking, community stabilization, labour migration and mainstreaming migration. IOM works with a wide range of partners which include, besides governmental agencies, the UN country team, NGOs, civil society and the academia.
A day before the visit of the Italian Minister of the Interior, the newspaper La Repubblica published a report in which it confirmed that the European Union was working on an agreement with Tunisia that would grant it economic aid in return for its toughening efforts to prevent migrants from reaching Europe.
It is worth mentioning that ,last summer, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio announced that his country had asked European countries to stop providing any financial and economic support to Tunisia if the flow of immigrants continued.
