TUNIS: Forty migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found dead on Wednesday following a shipwreck off Tunisia while 30 were rescued, a judicial spokesman said.

“Initial investigations indicate that there were 70 people on board the vessel,” said Walid Chtabri, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Mahdia.

“Forty bodies, including infants, were recovered, and 30 people were rescued,” Chtabri added. “They were all from countries in sub-Saharan Africa.” Tunisia, whose coast is some 145 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, is a key transit country for thousands of African migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea each year.

Over 55,000 irregular migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, according to the UN Refugee Agency’s latest figures. The majority of them had departed from Libya, while nearly 4,000 left from Tunisia, the agency said.

The central Mediterranean route is considered particularly dangerous, with 32,803 people dead or missing since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

With the European Union’s mounting efforts to curb migrant arrivals, many irregular migrants feel stranded in Tunisia.

In 2023, Tunisia signed a 255-million-euro ($290 million) deal with the European Union, nearly half of which was earmarked for tackling irregular migration.

The deal, strongly supported by Italy’s hard-right government, aimed to bolster Tunisia’s capacity to prevent boats leaving its shore. Tunisian President Kais Saied earlier this year called on the IOM to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.

Migrant returns to UK

A migrant who was removed from the UK to France under a returns deal has been detained after re-entering Britain on a small boat, a government source confirmed on Wednesday.

The Guardian newspaper first reported that the man returned to the UK as he said he did not feel “safe” in France and claimed to be a victim of modern slavery at the hands of human smugglers.

Migrants have been deported from the UK to France since September under a “one-in, one-out” deal, which allows London to send back small boat arrivals to France if they are deemed ineligible for asylum.

This includes those who arrive at British shores after passing through a “safe country”, including France. In exchange, Paris can send to Britain an equal number of migrants who are likely to have their asylum claim granted by UK authorities.

The man’s return comes as British media reported that the number of migrants arriving in the UK on small boats this year has surpassed the total number of English Channel crossings in 2024.

Both headlines will prove a headache for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has vowed to cut down migration numbers under pressure from the insurgent hard-right Reform UK party.

The man who returned to the UK is an Iranian national who was removed to France on September 19, in the fledgling days of the scheme, according to the BBC.

“We will not accept any abuse of our borders, and we will do everything in our power to remove those without the legal right to be here,” a spokesperson from the interior ministry said.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2025