27 dead, 83 rescued in two boats capsize off Tunisia

TUNIS: 27 migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defence official told AFP on Thursday.

The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands off central Tunisia, were aiming to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defence in the city of Sfax.

Searches were still underway for other possible missing passengers, according to the Tunisian National Guard, which oversees the coastguard.

Tunisia is a key departure point for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe with Italy, whose island of Lampedusa is only 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Tunisia, often their first port of call.

Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, which has seen a spate of recent shipwrecks, with the dangers exacerbated by bad weather.

On December 18, at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off the city of Sfax, with five others missing.

Earlier on December 12, the coastguard rescued 27 African migrants near Jebeniana, north of Sfax, but 15 were reported dead or missing.

Since the beginning of the year, the Tunisian human rights group FTDES has counted “between 600 and 700” migrants killed or missing in shipwrecks off Tunisia. More than 1,300 migrants died or disappeared in 2023.

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On the other hand, seven migrants were rescued, but at least 20 are missing after their boat sank en route to Italy from Libya, the mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa said on Wednesday.

Amongst those saved was an 8-year-old Syrian boy, hoping to join his father who lives in Germany. He was accompanied by his mother on the perilous trip, but she has not been seen since the boat sank on Tuesday.

Survivors, who were brought to Lampedusa, said the missing included five women and three children.

“They didn’t make it to shore. Knowing that these poor souls were so close, but couldn’t make it is even more heartbreaking,” said mayor Filippo Mannino.

The small boat set sail from the Libyan town of Zuwara late on Monday but got into difficulty in the early hours of Tuesday and flipped over. No bodies have yet been retrieved.

The sea migration route between Africa and Europe is one of the most dangerous in the world, with almost 24,500 disappearing or dying in the central Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Most of those deaths occurred on boats that set sail from Libya and Tunisia.

The Italian government has sought to reduce migrant departures, saying this will save lives at sea. In 2024, it recorded some 66,320 migrant landings, compared to 157,651 in 2023 and 105,131 in 2022.