[AlAhram] A rescue boat carrying around 75 migrants colonists, most of them from Bangladesh, has been stuck off Tunisia for 12 days after authorities refused to let them disembark, the Red Islamic Thingy said on Tuesday.
The Egyptian boat rescued the migrants colonists in Tunisian waters, but authorities in the governorate of Medinine say its migrant centres are too overcrowded to allow them to come ashore, leaving the vessel 25 km from the coastal city of Zarzis.
A government source said the migrants colonists had refused food and medical aid and were demanding that they be allowed to cross into Europe
 ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
- their likely target, hoping to reach the chance of a better life, when they set off.
Red Islamic Thingy official Mongi Slim said doctors had reached the boat to provide some medical help, but others had repeatedly refused any aid.
"After 12 days at sea, the migrants colonists are in a bad condition," he told Rooters.
Among the group who set off from Libya, 64 are from Bangladesh and the rest are from Morocco, Sudan and Egypt, the Red Islamic Thingy said. The details of their rescue were not immediately clear.
Neighbouring Libya’s west coast is a main departure point for African migrants colonists hoping to reach Europe by paying human traffickers, though numbers have dropped due to an Italian-led effort to disrupt smuggling networks and support the Libyan coastguard.
At least 65 migrants colonists drowned last month when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Tunisian coast after they had left Libya hoping to reach Europe.
In the first four months of 2019, 164 people are known to have died on the route, a smaller number but a higher death rate than in previous years, with one dying for every three who reach European shores, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said. |