Six migrant boat journeys foiled, 108 people rescued off Tunisia coast at turn of year

Tunisian authorities on Sunday said that they had thwarted six clandestine migrant boat journeys and rescued over a hundred people attempting to make the dangerous voyage to Europe by sea.

Spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard Hossam El-Din El-Jebali said in a statement that the agency managed to foil the six journeys and stop the boats from crossing the maritime borders overnight Saturday.

He said 108 migrants were rescued, 94 of them non-Tunisians, after the boats they were travelling in began to sink.

Thousands of people are believed to have crossed from Tunisia into Europe this year, with many fleeing conflict or poverty elsewhere in Africa.

But a growing number are young people or entire families departing from Tunisia are from the country as it reels from an economic crisis and increased political repression.

Many have perished on the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.

Late last month, Tunisian authorities recovered the bodies of four people believed to be African migrants, including a pregnant woman, off the coast of Tunisia’s Kerkennah Island.

It was believed the victims had set out by boat from Tunisia or neighbouring Libya, which has become a launchpad for illegal immigration since conflict began there in 2011.