Five days after leaving Barcelona, the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla arrived within 72 km. off the coast of Tunisia on Saturday. Last Wednesday, the flotilla was anchored at Menorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
Over the past two days, the flotilla has been heading southeast from Spain toward North Africa. It has said it wants to reach Gaza. Its members have called on the United Nations and governments to make sure they have a safe passage.
The flotilla organizers claim to have about 20 sailboats and larger vessels and expect to be joined by others from Italy and Tunisia. It is not clear how many of the boats made the crossing from Spain.
A minor storm forced the flotilla to anchor at Menorca for supplies and to conduct checks of the vessels.
The flotilla made the crossing of around 400 km. of open water on September 4-6 at an average speed of about five knots per hour. In some cases, the vessels appeared to have caught a good wind, which has boosted their speed to up to 10 knots.
Because the flotilla consists of both sailing vessels and those using engines, it likely has to travel at the speed of the slowest sailboats.
Ships approaching Tunisian waters
Several of the ships in the flotilla have transponders that show their locations, although they are not always reported in real time. On September 6 at around sunset, several of the ships were approaching Tunisia’s Galite Islands.
The flotilla is believed to be attempting to reach the Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza around September 15-20.
The voyage from Tunisia to Gaza is 2,170 km. At five knots per hour, it would take about 10 days to reach Gaza, or around September 17.
Light winds to the east of Tunisia were expected to force the sailboats to rely on their diesel engines, unless the fleet reduces its speed to only a few knots per hour, essentially a walking pace.
This would not be optimal, because the large vessels will burn fuel while waiting for the sailboats.