Tunisian Navy units on Friday recovered 21 bodies of sub-Saharan clandestine migrants, including nine women and a baby, who drowned after their boat sank off Sifax port in central Tunisia, the spokesperson for the Tunisian National Guard told PANA.
Commander Housemeddine Jebabli said that three survivors were rescued by the Coast Guard with assistance of a team of Civil Protection divers.
He said that sweep operations in the area of the tragedy continued to search for the missing, without specifying the cause of the accident.
According to one of the survivors, quoted by the spokesperson, the boat had on board 41 illegal migrants who had taken to sea the day before from Sfax to sail to the Italian coast.
On March 9, two boats ran aground in the same area, killing 39 people, while 165 migrants were rescued. Most of them were sub-Saharan nationals. (PANA/NAN)