Tunisian justice has sentenced five people accused of organizing an illegal immigration operation which ended with the shipwreck and disappearance of 18 Tunisian migrants in 2022 to heavy prison terms, AFP learned from judicial sources Friday.
A makeshift boat sank in the night of September 20 to 21, 2022 after leaving Zarzis (south-east) with 18 emigration candidates on board, all Tunisians.
Five Tunisian defendants, “one at large, two in detention, two others on the run subject to an arrest warrant, were sentenced Thursday evening to prison terms ranging from four to ten years with immediate execution.” Lassad Horr, spokesperson for the Médenine first instance court, where they were tried, told AFP.
Only around ten bodies had been found and this affair had provoked angry demonstrations from relatives of the missing in Zarzis.
On October 18, 2022, 3,000 to 4,000 people took to the streets and a general strike was observed in Zarzis to demand new research and denounce the mistaken burial of four Tunisian migrants in a private cemetery, usually reserved for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa fished in the region.
After these protests, Tunisian President Kais Saïed ordered the Ministry of Justice to open an investigation, “so that Tunisians know the whole truth and so that those responsible for these tragedies face the consequences of their negligence.”
The Medenine court found the five accused guilty of organizing illegal immigration operations from Tunisia, according to the spokesperson, who specified that a boat, two cars and a GPS device had been seized during the ‘investigation.
Tunisia is, with Libya, one of the main departure points for migrants – mainly from sub-Saharan Africa but also a large number of Tunisians – who risk the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean in the hope of reaching the ‘Europe.
More than 1,300 migrants died or went missing last year in shipwrecks near the Tunisian coast, according to the NGO Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES).
