TUNIS, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Some 9,329 Tunisians tried to leave Tunisia illegally in 2017, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) announced on Thursday in a press conference held in the capital Tunis.

FTDES President Abdessatar Sahbani revealed that 66 percent of them managed to reach Italy, while the rest 34 percent were intercepted by security authorities.

According to Abdessatar, the number of the arrested by the Tunisian authorities has tripled compared with that of 2016.

The month of October in 2017 saw a peak of illegal immigration attempts, registering 951 people against 159 a year ago.

Tunisia is the second country after Albania in number of its citizens expelled from Italy. It ranked the first in the Maghreb, with nearly twice as many Moroccans as Tunisians expelled from Italy, according to the FTDES.?