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Tunisia Fishermen Become Lifesavers of the Mediterranean

Agence France-Presse

   ZARZIS, TUNISIA - The Tunisian trawler radioed in for help as it passed
   the migrant boat in distress out at sea. But with the packed craft
   still adrift two days later, captain Chamseddine Bourassine took direct
   action.

   Fishermen from the North African country are spending more and more
   time pulling in stranded migrants after a sharp decline in humanitarian
   and European naval patrols along the stretch of water between
   war-wracked Libya and Italy.

   Bourassine, his crew and three other fishing boats ferried the 69
   migrants back to shore May 11, five days after their boat pushed off
   from Zuwara on the western Libyan coast.

   'We end up saving them ourselves'

   "The area where we fish is a crossing point" between Zuwara and the
   Italian island of Lampedusa, said Badreddine Mecherek, a Tunisian
   fisherman from Zarzis near the border with Libya.

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