At least 12 Tunisians were found dead and 29 others were rescued after a migrant boat capsized off the coast of the southeastern island of Djerba on Monday, a judicial official said, according to AFP.
“Twelve bodies were recovered and 29 people were rescued after their boat sank at dawn on Monday,” Medenine court spokesman Fethi Baccouche said, adding that five men and four women were among the dead, and that the cause of the sinking remained unknown.
Baccouche said the search for the missing, the number of whom was not specified, is still underway.
The boat set sail from the island of Djerba, he noted, adding that an investigation has been launched to determine the causes of death.
The Tunisian National Guard said it was alerted by four migrants who swam back ashore.
Most of the migrants were Tunisian nationals, accompanied by two foreign migrants.
Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants seeking better lives in Europe, often risking dangerous Mediterranean crossings.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing, with Italy — whose Lampedusa island is only 150 km away — often their first port of call.
Last Wednesday, Tunisian authorities announced that the bodies of 13 irregular migrants of African descent had been recovered off the coast of the city of Mahdia in the eastern part of the country.
More than 1,300 people died or disappeared last year in shipwrecks off Tunisia, according to the rights group Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
Since January 1 until mid-May, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized off Tunisia's coast, the country’s interior ministry said.
During the first four months of this year, the ministry said it saved and prevented 21,545 migrants from crossing the sea to Europe, an increase of approximately 22.5% year-on-year.
The International Organization for Migration has said more than 30,309 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.
