By Enyichukwu Enemanna
High volume of sub-Saharan African migrants recovered from recent shipwrecks are reportedly more than the local medical system can handle, a health official in the Tunisian province of Sfax has warned
A state news agency, TAP, quoted the regional Director of Health, Hatem Cherif, as saying that the morgue of Habib Bourguiba University Hospital in the provincial capital had received 42 bodies of migrants, noting that the morgue has only 35 capacity.
Bodies of the migrants were pulled out of the sea, after their boats sank in recent days off the province’s coast.
On Sunday, domestic media reported the death of at least 29 migrants, during attempted sea crossings from Sfax.
Last week, the morgue had received 70 bodies, Mr. Cherif was quoted as saying, warning that with summer approaching, the pace of illegal migration attempts by sea would escalate and the decomposition of bodies would be faster, due to rising temperatures.
The official appealed to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to provide refrigerated containers and lorries to transport bodies to the hospital.
TAP noted that more than 800 bodies of sub-Saharan Africans, who had died at sea had been buried in local cemeteries in Sfax throughout 2022 and this year.
The past few weeks have seen a spike in attempted sea crossings to Italy by undocumented migrants.
The incidents came amid a campaign of arrests of sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia and an anti-migrant narrative embraced by President Kais Saied, in recent weeks.
