SW News: A migrant ship sank on the Tunisian island of Kerkennah on Sunday, killing at least four people and leaving 51 others missing; all aboard were from Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the country's interior minister, 901 drowned migrants' bodies were recovered off the Tunisian coast between January 1 and July 20, underscoring the enormous obstacles that both migrants and authorities in the area confront.
Separately, two migrant ships sank near the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on the same day, killing two people and stranding around 30 more at sea, with 57 others rescued.
Furthermore, according to the Italian mountain rescue organization, 34 migrants were airlifted by helicopter from a cliff in Lampedusa, where they had been detained since late Friday following another shipwreck.
Sfax, Tunisia, is at the heart of the country's migration crisis, and the coastguard said on Saturday that they carried out a challenging rescue operation south of Lampedusa, picking up the occupants of two sinking migrant boats.
In an alarming trend, crossing attempts from Sfax to Lampedusa have grown dramatically since March of this year. This increase is the outcome of what Tunisian President Kais Saied stated about Sub-Saharan refugees, who he said were attempting to transform Tunisian society.
Recent reports indicate that more than 1,800 people have perished while attempting to navigate the central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe. However, the International Organization for Migration has issued a warning that the true number of casualties is likely to exceed these already alarming estimates.