29 dead, 11 rescued off Tunisia in migrant boat sinkings
Tunis (Tunisia), Mar 26: Boat sinkings off the coast of Tunisia over the weekend killed at least 29 people from countries in sub-Saharan Africa who were trying make the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, the Tunisian National Guard said on Sunday.
Tunisian fishermen recovered 19 bodies, said National Guard spokesman Houssameddine Jebabli. The Coast Guard also recovered eight bodies on Saturday night and rescued 11 survivors who'd been aboard a boat that went down, he said.
Two other bodies were recovered in waters off the Tunisian port of Sfax, he said.
It wasn't immediately clear how many more people might also have been aboard boats that sank.
A Tunisian NGO that tracks migration issues said five boats are believed to have foundered in the past two days off Sfax and that 67 people remain unaccounted for.
People fleeing conflict or poverty routinely take boats from Tunisian shores toward Europe, even though the central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migration route in the world, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Many are from sub-Saharan Africa.
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Congress standing with CM Siddaramaiah, will support him, says party President Kharge
Bengaluru (PTI): Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said the party is standing with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and will support him as he faces a probe by Lokayukta police in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case.
Rejecting BJP's demand for Siddaramaiah's resignation, he noted that "neither a chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted," and said, "let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine."
"When the Godhra incident happened, whether (Narendra) Modi ji had resigned (as the then Gujarat CM)? Several cases were also pending against him at that time, even against Mr Shah (Union Home Minister Amit Shah)," Kharge said in response to a question on BJP questioning CM's moral right to continue, with FIR slated to be registered against him.
Speaking to reporters here, he said: "Don't target a particular person to damage his image, through him the party will also be damaged. Your (BJP) interest is to damage the Congress party, not the individual. He may be here today or may not be, the party will continue. Just to destroy the Congress party and the Congress party's base votes, they want to destroy, that is why they are doing this."
Let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine it at that time, he further said. "Now nothing is there, (but) every day I'm seeing that MUDA, MUDA. Crores of rupees (have been) swallowed by industrialists, Rs 16 lakh crore of their debt have been written off, and now you are taking one small issue and fighting. That too neither chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted. Every day this is news. I'm fed up seeing all these things."
Asked whether the Congress high command will stand with the Chief Minister, even after the registering of FIR, Kharge said: "that is a hypothetical question. We are standing with him, we will support him, because he represents the party, not (an) individual."
A Special Court here on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing of an FIR against him.
The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife B M Parvathi by MUDA.
The Special Court exclusively to deal with criminal cases related to former and elected MPs/MLAs issued the order directing the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna.
In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA.
The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout.
Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts.
It is alleged that Parvathi had no legal title over this 3.16 acres of land at survey number 464 of Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk.
