In the first six months of 2019, 1,277 arrivals from Tunisia were intercepted by Italian authorities. This year, that number rose to 6,628. In July alone, as the pandemic took hold and the waters calmed, 4,252 migrants were intercepted by Italian authorities, compared with 502 the previous year. These numbers do not include those who landed in Italy undetected. Unemployment, one of the key triggers for the 2011 revolution, has not decreased after nine years of stagnation. Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate across Tunisia was around 16%. In some areas, such as the governorate in which Zarzis sits, it reached 30%. While images of Tunisians arriving in Italy apparently dressed for their holidays pulling suitcases on wheels and carrying poodles have provided ample fodder for the country’s right-wing commentators, there is little doubt of the poverty that grips many in Zarzis. Increasingly, entire families are among those departing, with more mothers and children now making the perilous 206-mile journey to connect with relatives already in Europe. Perhaps understandably, none of those approached by the Guardian was willing to be quoted.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
More Stories
The Marshall Nature Reserve Gives a Different Glimpse of the Sudanese Capital
The Journey of Moving Tanzanians Around
Correcting Kinshasa’s Commodity Crisis
Can African Leaders Rate Themselves?
First Black African to Win Grand Tour Stage
Financing Dangote’s Fertiliser Dream Tougher than Expected
This is a Moment for the Women of Kenya
US Support in Somalia Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time
A Symbol of Sudan’s Resistance
Families of Trapped Miners in Limbo
Google Translate Announces an Addition of 10 Languages Spoken in Africa
All Four Tourists Reported Missing in the Fish River Canyon have been Accounted For