Tunisia: Migrant bodies exceed hospital capacity

A judicial spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a central hospital in the Sfax governorate, east of Tunisia, can no longer accommodate the bodies of illegal migrants who perished on their journeys to cross to the Italian coast.

The official spokesperson for the Sfax Court, Fawzi Al-Masmoudi, informed AFP that the number of bodies has exceeded the hospital’s capacity, explaining that last Tuesday the number had exceeded: “Two hundred bodies, while the hospital’s (Habib Bourguiba) capacity does not exceed forty or fifty as a maximum, which has created a health issue.”

Sfax is an area that witnesses many departure operations of Tunisian migrants and those from sub-Saharan African countries heading towards European, particularly Italian, coasts. Last week, local authorities in the governorate buried thirty bodies, as operations continue almost daily “to reduce the pressure on the hospital,” according to Al-Masmoudi.

Health and municipal authorities bury the bodies in cemeteries after they conduct DNA analyses and document them with numbers because: “The problem today is the large number of bodies floating and reaching the shore. Their identities and the drowning incidents they belong to are unknown, while the number is increasing.”

The Tunisian Forum for Economic ‎and Social Rights (FTDES)‎, an organisation following up on migration issues in Tunisia, has documented at least 220 victims, including deceased and missing, since the beginning of the year until 24 April.

More than 78 per cent of migrant sailing operations occur in the provinces of Sfax and Mahdia. The spokesperson of the FTDES, Ramadan Ben Omar, told AFP: “Every year, the issue of dealing with the bodies arises. Local authorities pledged to allocate a specific cemetery for migrant bodies last year, but it has not been completed because they constantly seek a solution of allocating a cemetery for migrant bodies on the pretext that they are not Muslim.”

Previously, the Tunisian National Guard announced that it had rescued or intercepted: “14,406 people during the first three months of the year, including 13,138 belonging to sub-Saharan Africa, while the rest were Tunisians.”

Tunisia, whose coastlines are less than 150 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, regularly records attempts by migrants, most of whom belong to sub-Saharan African countries, to leave illegally to the Italian coasts.

The pace of migration attempts, which often end in casualties and drowning tragedies, increased after a speech in which Tunisian President Kais Saied strongly criticised the phenomenon of illegal migration and the influx of migrants to his country, the majority of whom are from countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

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