One person rescued after a boat carrying 15 people capsizes off the coast of southern Tunisia.
Published On 22 Aug 202622 Aug 2026
|
Updated: 3 hours agoUpdated: 3 hours ago
The bodies of two people have been recovered while 12 others remain missing after a boat carrying migrants and asylum seekers sank off the southern coast of Tunisia, according to an official.
Houcem Eddine Jebabli, the spokesman for Tunisia’s National Guard, told the TAP state news agency on Saturday that authorities had transferred the two bodies to a hospital on the nearby island of Djerba.
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list
He told national radio Mosaique FM that about 15 people were believed to have been on board the boat when it left somewhere between the cities of Zarzis and Ben Guerdane, and that the vessel sank 14 nautical miles (26km) off Tunisia’s coast overnight.
The spokesman also said that one survivor was rescued.
The boat had set off early on Thursday, and a commercial ship found the sole survivor on Saturday in a life jacket, Mosaique FM reported, citing testimony from the survivor.
A helicopter and coastguard boats were dispatched to the area in search of more survivors, The Associated Press news agency reported, adding that the boat was believed to be headed towards Italy.
Earlier on Saturday, Mostafa Abdelkebir, the president of the Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights, told the Reuters news agency that all of those missing were Tunisians.
He said the boat was carrying mostly young people, including seven members of the same family, as well as a man and his pregnant wife.
Tunisia-EU deal
Tunisia was once a major departure point for migrants and asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe, but the number of people attempting the crossing from the country has declined sharply in the past two years amid a crackdown and tighter maritime controls supported by the European Union.
In July, 46 rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, issued a joint statement criticising the EU’s 2023 deal with Tunisia to curb migration.
The deal provides Tunisia with funding to carry out EU border control in the country, and this has led to “reckless and violent interceptions at sea” of refugees, “collective and summary expulsions”, and “fueled and normalized serious human rights violations”, the groups said.
They called on the EU to suspend funding for migration and border-control activities involving Tunisian security forces.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 35,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014.
The Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights has previously estimated that about 10,000 Tunisians have gone missing at sea attempting to cross to Europe since 2011.