6th June, 2018
Tunisian Prime Minister, Youssef Chahed, on Wednesday sacked Interior Minister, Lotfi Braham, after a Europe-bound migrant ship sank off the coast of the North African country.
Some 112 people are presumed dead after the incident, making it the worst capsizing in Mediterranean waters this year, according to the UN’s migration agency.
The boat was carrying at least 180 people when it sank on Sunday.
Chahed, relieved Braham of his post and asked Justice Minister, Ghazi Jeribi, to also serve as an acting interior minister, the official news agency TAP reported.
In Tunisia, the interior ministry is in charge of security.
On Tuesday, the ministry said 10 security chiefs had been suspended in connection with investigations into the incident.
Sixty bodies have been recovered and 52 migrants are still missing in Sunday’s tragedy, Flavio Giacomo, a Spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said on Tuesday.
The IOM said that 68 people had survived the capsizing.
The boat set out from the Kerkennah Islands, off the coast of the city of Sfax, late Saturday and found itself in distress shortly before midnight.
The boat likely sank because it was overloaded, according to the Tunisian defence ministry.
The Tunisian coast has turned into a launch pad for thousands of migrants seeking to reach Italy after controls were tightened in neighbouring Libya.