Morgues are straining to deal with the influx. From just April 18 to 28, 210 bodies were recovered off the beaches around central Tunisia. Hundreds of others have drowned trying to make the same trip. A Nigerian in Tunis shows a wound he received from local children shortly after President Kais Saied made a speech in February that blamed sub-Saharan Africans for creating a demographic change in Tunisia Libya, the second-largest source of irregular migration to Italy, saw about 7,000 people leave over the same period. If he is able to leave for Europe, Tamba would join the 12,000 people already reported to have made their way informally across the Mediterranean to Italy during just the first quarter of this year. He has no idea what that could be, he says. There is nothing for Tamba in Tunisia, he says, but unemployment and the racism of local inhabitants, which forced him from his apartment into a makeshift encampment outside the buildings of the International Organization for Migration, where he shelters with others awaiting passage to Europe or for some kind of solution. “I travelled by road, through the desert, from Guinea, Mali and Algeria, then here,” he said of the journey of about 6,000km (3,730 miles). Tamba spent about $2,000 to get from Sierra Leone to Tunisia. However, at its heart are human pain and, ultimately, hope for a better future. A storm is gathering over the Mediterranean.Īt its turbulent centre lies Tunisia and those making their way there from across Africa to join with thousands of local emigres in the hope of building new lives in Europe.Īt its periphery lie political arguments over Europe’s internal politics, the energy needs of the bloc and even the war in Ukraine.

Choice by A.J. Walkley