34 migrants missing after shipwreck off Tunisia

Earlier Friday, Alarm Phone, a charity monitoring migrant boats, said that 40 people were at risk on a “boat in distress trying to escape Tunisia”.

Those on board reported that “so-called Tunisian coastguards have removed their engine, beaten some of them, and abandoned them at sea,” the group said.

The latest deadly shipwreck off Tunisia, one of at least four this month, comes two days after five sub-Saharan African migrants drowned and another 28 went missing when a boat carrying 38 mostly Ivorian migrants capsized.

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In the days after Saied’s speech, slammed by rights groups as “racist hate speech”, migrants reported an upsurge in racist attacks and many were evicted from their accommodation by landlords fearing large fines or prison for housing them.

Those working informally in construction and other sectors also lost their jobs, and thousands rushed to their embassies to be repatriated.

While some migrants arrive in Tunisia to study, many use the country as a springboard for attempts to reach Europe by sea. European governments have pressured Tunis to rein in the flow.

Parts of Tunisia’s coastline are within 150 kilometres of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

A spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard said on Friday that in 24 hours, the coastguard had intercepted more than 1,000 migrants, 25 of them Tunisians.