TUNIS: The Tunisian coast guard found nine migrants dead on Thursday aboard a vessel drifting in the Mediterranean off the southern port of Zarzis, authorities said.
The boat, carrying more than 50 passengers of various nationalities, had “sustained damage caused by water getting in,” the National Guard said in a statement.
Tunisian media said the boat had set sail for Europe from neighboring Libya.
The provincial prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the death, spokesperson Lassad Horr told AFP.
“It’s very likely that they died after being overwhelmed by the fuel fumes at the bottom of the boat,” Horr said.
The passengers, all men, came from countries including Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan and Syria, he added.
Tunisia and Libya are the main north African departure points for thousands of irregular migrants who risk their lives every year in the hopes of having better lives in Europe.
The International Organization for Migration said 2,498 people died or went missing while trying to cross the central Mediterranean last year, a 75 percent increase on 2022.
Nine migrants found dead off Tunisia: officials
https://arab.news/2nsjy
Nine migrants found dead off Tunisia: officials
- Tunisian media said the boat had set sail for Europe from neighboring Libya
- The passengers came from countries including Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan and Syria
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
