As Tunisians headed to the polls on 13 October to elect their new president, 110 men and women quietly boarded a fishing boat near the southern city of Sfax and set off north towards Italy. Some of the irregular migrants were Tunisian, others hailed from West African states.
The group was ultimately caught by Tunisian authorities, a fate shared by nearly 4 000 others intercepted while leaving the country in 2019. Thousands more were caught by Italy - or successfully disembarked in Europe in hope of a better life. They are part of a wave of Maghrebis - Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians and Libyans - who continue to risk their lives in irregular migration attempts across the Mediterranean Sea.
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