At least two migrant boats sank in stormy weather on Saturday after setting off from the Tunisian port of Sfax, reported the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).

The Italian coast guard managed to save 57 people from the two boats and also recovered the bodies of a woman and a child. But at least 30 migrants were, according to survivors, still missing.

Among those missing are at least two children, reported the German news agency dpa.

Also read: Open Arms and Astral help hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean

The UN Migration Agency's (IOM) cultural mediators working in Italy spoke to survivors, most of whom appeared to originally come from sub-Saharan Africa and had been traveling in dangerous metal boats.

These are often soldered together quickly and liable to breaking up mid-journey, IOM spokesperson in Italy Flavio di Giacomo told InfoMigrants earlier this year.

Stormy weather, choppy waters

Stormy weather warnings were issued on Friday for the central Mediterranean region and also tweeted by Alarm Phone, which monitors migrant journeys towards Europe.

However, some of the migrant boats that got into trouble over the weekend between the coasts of North Africa and Italy had already set off on Thursday while the weather conditions in the area appeared relatively calm.

An investigation has now been opened in Agrigento on the island of Sicily into the two shipwrecks, reported AFP. Agrigento's chief of police Emanuele Ricifari said that the people smugglers who put them to sea would have known that bad weather was on the forecast.

"Whoever allowed them, or forced them, to leave with this sea is an unscrupulous criminal lunatic," Ricifari said in a press conference. "Rough seas are forecast for the next few days. Let's hope they stop. It's carnage in this sea," he concluded.

'The Mediterranean is a cemetery'

Pope Francis meanwhile has expressed similar sentiments. Speaking to journalists on the way home from the Catholic World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, the pontiff told reporters that he was concerned about the rising number of dead on the Mediterranean route, reported Euronews.

"The Mediterranean is a cemetery," said the Pope. "But it is not the biggest cemetery, that is in North Africa. It is just terrible," he concluded.

Francis promised that at a meeting of bishops to be held in Marseille in September, the subject of migration would be seriously discussed.

Several rescue missions at sea

The Italian coast guard meanwhile shared further details about its rescue operations on the weekend. It said it had carried out "several complex rescue operations" in rough seas, with waves and foam from the sea dwarfing even the size and power of coast guard ships.

One video by the Italian coast guard, filmed on Saturday (August 5) and released on Sunday (August 6), showed tens of migrants bobbing helplessly in the rough seas with black rubber rings around their torsos, before ultimately being rescued by the crews of two Italian coast guard motorboats.

At one point in the video, one of the coast guard crew was seen jumping into the sea in a wetsuit to help pull the inflatable rescue buoy, which the migrants were grasping, towards the coast guard's motor boat. Exhaustion showed on the faces of many of the migrants as they were pulled from the sea by three more Italian coast guard crew members.

After over a minute of frenetic activity, one of the crew can be heard in the video saying, "we have got everyone from the sea, well done, great job."

Rescued from rocks at sea

Then on Sunday, a rescue troupe from Sicily's Alpine rescue service (CNSAS) managed to help a group of 34 migrants to safety. The CNSAS said it winched 29 people, including six women, two of whom were pregnant, to safety while the fire brigade helped the remaining five.

The migrants, said the CNSAS, had been stuck since late Friday after their boat had been tossed onto a group of rocks by strong winds.

The Red Cross had already brought them food, water, clothes and thermal blankets in the meantime but the coast guard couldn't rescue them because of the waves and wind, relying on help from the CNSAS.

Bodies wash ashore in Tunisia

Meanwhile on the other side of the Mediterranean, ten bodies of migrants were washed ashore on a beach near Sfax in Tunisia on Saturday.

Tunisia's interior ministry said that by July 20 this year, the country had already recovered 901 bodies following a number of accidents involving migrant boats at sea.

A judicial official in Tunisia meanwhile also told the news agency Reuters on Sunday that at least four migrants were thought to have died and 51 were missing after a migrant boat sank off Tunisia's Kerkennah island. All those on board, said the official, were from sub-Saharan Africa.

The country's coast guard meanwhile has also announced that it has rescued or intercepted around 34,290 migrants to date this year.

Also read: Departures from Sfax on the rise

Tunisian authorities say there are around 17,000 migrants originating from countries in sub-Saharan Africa currently in the city of Sfax and the surrounding area, many of whom are hoping to attempt the life-threatening crossing to Europe.

Altercations in high water

Last Thursday, a spokesperson for the Tunisian National Guard reported that the coast guard had recovered four bodies off the coast of Mahdia, another port city not far from Sfax.

This happened as three boats carrying 176 migrants from Tunisia and sub-Saharan African countries were intercepted.

The spokesperson alleged that in this instance some of the migrants attacked the coast guard units with knives and Molotov cocktails to try to prevent them from being brought back to Tunisia.

The National Guard said they had to send reinforcements from the navy and a military helicopter to bring the situation under control, reported by AP.

More than 1,800 dead in Mediterranean so far this year

More than 1,800 people have already died in total while attempting to cross the central Mediterranean since the beginning of the year. The IOM's Di Giacomo said that this is almost twice the number compared to 2022.

"The truth is that figure is likely to be much higher. Lots of bodies are being found at sea, suggesting there are many shipwrecks we never hear about," explained Di Giacomo.

As well as being put to sea in unseaworthy vessels, migrants often find that smugglers or fishermen steal the engines of their boats mid-crossing, so they can be reused. This leaves them reliant on sea rescue operations, which sometimes come too late.

Also read: Fishermen turned pirates prey on migrant boats

Italy's interior ministry last updated the numbers of arrivals by boat on August 4, when it said that the number of arrivals since the beginning of the year stood at around 92,000.

Currently, the majority of arrivals are people originally from Ivory Coast and Guinea, with a total of more than 11,000 arrivals from each of those countries to date this year.

Nationals from Egypt, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Pakistan and Burkina Faso also account for between 5,000 and 7,000 cases in each nationality group.

Reception center on Lampedusa yet again over full

According to the Italian online newspaper Fanpage.it, there are currently 2,200 migrants in the first reception center on Lampedusa.

A spokesperson for Save the Children, an organization also offering support there, said that the people involved in the shipwrecks needed extra support, including psychological help after the trauma they had survived.

Italian authorities have been operating frequent transfers from Lampedusa to cities across Italy on the mainland, but the situation inside the reception center "continues to be difficult," reported Fanpage.it.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani said he was worried not only about the increase in arrivals in Italy and departures from Tunisia but also about the developing situation in Niger, which could have an adverse effect on migration in the country, which for years has been a main transit point in Africa for migrants.

"Every day, the situation risks becoming worse," said Tajani. "If there is a war in Niger, it will be a catastrophe, especially for those who are trying to flee [through that country]."

Also read: Tunisia recovered over 900 bodies to date this year

Tajani said that Italy had meanwhile requested the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR to help resolve the situation in Tunisia, saying that both migrants and the native Tunisian population were "also in difficulty and suffering."

Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said in an interview with another Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, that Italy had a lot riding on the migrant deal with Tunisia:

"Our objective is to block the departures. It is only achievable with long and short term initiatives that can lead to stable and durable solutions. The accords we have with the countries of departure are fundamental to achieve this aim. We need time but we will succeed."

With AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters