TUNIS, Tunisia: Tunisia’s defense ministry said 487 migrants, including 93 children, were rescued Friday off the North African country’s coast as they tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in an overloaded boat.
The ministry said in a statement that the vessel had left from neighboring Libya carrying migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The rescue operation was led by a Tunisian patrol boat and ships from the country’s navy and national guard near the island of Kerkennah, off the city of Sfax.
Amid the migrants were 162 Egyptians, 104 Bangladeshis, 81 Syrians, 78 Moroccans and others from Pakistan, the Palestinian territories and several African sub-Saharan countries, the ministry statement said.
This year alone, United Nations officials estimate that 1,600 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean, the main gateway to Europe for migrants trying to enter the continent with the help of human smugglers.
The busiest and deadliest migrant route to Europe is the central Mediterranean, where people travel in crowded boats from Libya and Tunisia — and in some cases all the way from Turkey — toward Italy. About 60,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea this year, and some 1,200 have died or disappeared on the journey, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Tunisia rescues 487 migrants in crowded boat off its coast
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Tunisia rescues 487 migrants in crowded boat off its coast
Berlin says plans to host Sudan aid conference
- The conference would be held around the anniversary of the2023 outbreak of the civil war in April
- Previous Sudan aid conferences were held in Paris in 2024 and London in 2025
BERLIN: Germany plans to host a Sudan aid conference in the spring to raise emergency relief funds for the war-torn country, the foreign ministry said on Friday.
Brutal fighting between Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the country, with reports of atrocities, starvation and mass killings.
“Today, the world commemorates a sad date: 1,000 days of war in Sudan,” a foreign ministry spokeswoman said. “Far too many people continue to suffer and die there, victims of hunger, thirst, displacement and rape.”
The conference would be held around the anniversary of the 2023 outbreak of the civil war in April, the spokeswoman said.
Previous Sudan aid conferences were held in Paris in 2024 and London in 2025.
“The world’s largest humanitarian crisis has already driven millions of civilians into poverty and many tens of thousands to their deaths,” the spokeswoman said.
“Germany is doing everything in its power, both politically and in humanitarian terms, to help the people on the ground and to end the fighting.”
International calls for a ceasefire have so far failed to halt the fighting between Sudan’s army-aligned government and the RSF, which is descended from the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.
Both sides have faced war crimes accusations over the course of the conflict.
