Tunisian authorities recovered the bodies of four irregular migrants from Tunisia off the coast of Ben Guerdane in the country’s southeast after a boat carrying 15 people capsized, a rights group said Saturday.
Mostafa Abdelkebir, the head of the Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights, told Anadolu that 15 migrants had set off on Wednesday from the coasts of Ben Guerdane and Zarzis in the southeastern town of Medenine in an attempt to sail to Italy when their boat capsized.
He said security forces had managed to rescue one of the missing migrants on Friday, while search operations for the remaining missing persons are still ongoing.
Tunisia is a major departure point for irregular migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Migration attempts, however, have dropped sharply over the past two years as Tunisian authorities have intensified their crackdown on migration and tightened maritime border controls.
