Several thousands of inhabitants mobilized to claim answers after the disappearance of several Tunisian migrants at sea a month ago.
Le Monde with AFP
From 3,000 to 4,000 people demonstrated in Zarzis, a city in southeast Tunisia on Tuesday, October 18, to claim the intensification of research from the bodies of Tunisian migrants who disappeared at sea a month ago. Some brandished photos of the missing and banners denouncing a “state crime”, calling for “the truth”. Among the demonstrators gathered on the main avenue of the Tunisian locality were the families of the twelve migrants who have disappeared.
The officials and traders of this coastal city of approximately 75,000 inhabitants observed a general strike at the call of a local union requesting an investigation into this sinking and the procedures for research and burial of the bred found .
During the night of September 20 to 21, a makeshift boat part of Zarzis with 18 Tunisian migrants on board disappeared. Subsequently, eight bodies were found on October 10 by fishermen. Local authorities had then mistakenly buried four Tunisian migrants in a private cemetery, the African Garden, usually reserved for the bodies of sub -Saharan migrants drafted in the region, which caused the anger of the families.
The Tunisian president orders the opening of an investigation
After their protests, the President of the Tunisian Republic, Kaïs Saïed, ordered Monday at the Ministry of Justice to open an investigation “so that the Tunisians know the whole truth and that those responsible for these dramas face the consequences of their negligence “.
From spring to fall, due to favorable weather, the pace of migrant departures from Tunisia and neighboring Libya to Italy is accelerating. These crossing attempts sometimes end in drownings. Faced with migratory pressure, the Tunisian authorities are struggling to intercept or rescue migrants due to, they say, a lack of means. The Tunisian League for Human Rights has denounced “the incapacity of the authorities to mobilize the means necessary to carry out rescue and research operations with speed”.
Tunisia is going through a serious politico-economic crisis and now has 4 million poor people, out of a population of nearly 12 million inhabitants. More than 22,500 migrants, Tunisians, sub -Saharan and other nationalities, have been intercepted off the Tunisian coast since the start of the year, according to official data.