Illegal migrant numbers increase

TUNIS: Around 7988 Tunisian irregular migrants have been able to enter Italian territory in 2017, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) announced Saturday. The figure from January to November this year sees an increase starting from June, and reached a peak of 17 times more than that of the same period of 2016.

The forum also reported that between 1560 and 2190 Tunisians were repatriated from Europe throughout 33 weeks of this year, mainly from Italy, France and Germany.

According to FTDES, about 307 non-regulatory migration operations were intercepted by the Tunisian authorities from January 1 to December 12, 2017, including 253 operations during the second half of the year. Altogether 3424 irregular migrants were arrested, FTDES said.