ZARZIS, Tunisia — Thousands of
Tunisians demonstrated, and a general strike shut down the
coastal city of Zarzis Tuesday, to demand a renewed search for relatives who
went missing during a September migration attempt.
اضافة اعلان
The city has been
rocked by days of protests also fueled by anger over the burial of four people,
suspected of being missing Tunisians, in a nearby cemetery for foreign migrants
— allegedly without efforts to identify them.
“We want to know
the truth,” local activist Ezzedine Msalem told AFP, denouncing “a state crime
perpetrated against the inhabitants of Zarzis”.
Tuesday’s protests
come four weeks after 18 Tunisians boarded a boat headed for Italy, joining
tens of thousands of clandestine migrants who have attempted to reach
Europe in
recent years — many of them Tunisians exhausted by a chronic economic crisis.
Zarzis residents
have been angered by reports that authorities buried four bodies found at sea —
believed to be passengers from the boat — in a nearby cemetery for foreign
migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, whose bodies regularly wash up along
the coast after similar tragedies.
Those bodies have
since been exhumed for identification, while another two bodies believed to be
Tunisians have been found.
That would leave 12
passengers from the boat still missing.
Media reports said
as many as 4,000 protesters, including relatives of the missing, marched along
the city’s main street.
Many held up
pictures of relatives or signs saying “we want the truth.”
Government inquiry
The powerful
UGTT trade union federation voiced support for the strike and
demanded an inquiry into the rescue effort and how the bodies were buried.
Shops and
government offices were closed, along with health services, except for emergency
cases.
On Tuesday,
President Kais Saied asked Justice Minister Leila Jaffel to open an
investigation “so that Tunisians can know the full truth and who was behind
these tragedies”.
The Tunisian Human
Rights League said authorities had “not devoted the necessary resources to
search and rescue operations in a timely way” and called for an inquiry into
the burials.
The North African
country has a long Mediterranean coast, in places just 130km from the Italian
island of Lampedusa.
Despite generally
favorable weather from spring to autumn, the voyages on barely seaworthy boats
often end in tragedy.
Earlier this month,
AFP journalists saw the coastguard intercepting migrants aboard overcrowded
boats.
Tunisian
authorities intercepted nearly 200 migrants attempting to reach Europe over the
weekend, the defense ministry said Tuesday.
According to official figures, more than 22,500 migrants
have been intercepted since the start of the year, around half of them from
sub-Saharan Africa.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
