عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Tunisia Retrieves Bodies of 24 Drowned Migrants Off Sfax Coast

A Tunisian national coast guard helps a migrant child to get off a rescue boat in Jbeniana, Safx, Tunisia April 23, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a handout video taken April 23, 2022. (Reuters)
A Tunisian national coast guard helps a migrant child to get off a rescue boat in Jbeniana, Safx, Tunisia April 23, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a handout video taken April 23, 2022. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Tunisia Retrieves Bodies of 24 Drowned Migrants Off Sfax Coast

A Tunisian national coast guard helps a migrant child to get off a rescue boat in Jbeniana, Safx, Tunisia April 23, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a handout video taken April 23, 2022. (Reuters)
A Tunisian national coast guard helps a migrant child to get off a rescue boat in Jbeniana, Safx, Tunisia April 23, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a handout video taken April 23, 2022. (Reuters)

Tunisia’s coastguard has retrieved 24 more bodies of migrants who had been among about 120 people on boats that sank off the Tunisian coast in late April, a judicial official said on Wednesday.

On April 23, the Tunisian coast guard said four boats carrying 120 African migrants headed for Italy through the Mediterranean had sunk off the coast near the city of Sfax.

The confirmed death toll has now reached 67. More than 50 people are still missing.

The Interior Ministry revealed that it had arrested 20,616 people in 2021 during attempts to cross towards Italy. Among these were 10,371 foreigners, most of who are from sub-Saharan African countries.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
TT
TT

WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.