A boat carrying migrants is reported to have broken down and taken on water due to bad weather off the coast of the Tunisian town of Chebba in the Mediterranean on Thursday (December 12).

Tunisian authorities managed to rescue 27 people from the shipwrecked vessel. According to their testimonies, at least 42 people had been on board when they had set out.

A Tunisian judge, Farid Ben Jha, told Reuters that a search got underway on Thursday for six people thought to be missing.

All the migrants on the boat – eight of whom were women – are reported to have been from sub-Saharan African countries. Those rescued included nationals of Cameroon, Senegal and Guinea.

The boat is reported to have set sail on Tuesday evening from the coastal city of Sfax, where the majority of sub-Saharan African migrants stay in makeshift camps in scrubland.

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Missing and dead

The Tunisian human rights group FTDES estimates that between 600 and 700 people have died or gone missing on the Mediterranean route from Tunisia since the beginning of the year. More than 1,300 died or disappeared during the whole of 2023, the rights group added.

The UN Migration Agency IOM’s Missing Migrants project has already recorded 1,617 dead or missing on the whole of the central Mediterranean route, meaning people who left Libya, Tunisia, or Algeria to head towards Italy.

The actual number may be much higher, cautions the IOM, since no one knows exactly who set out to sea and when. Many of the voyages begin at night in an attempt to avoid police and coast guard controls.

In late November, reports AFP, the bodies of two dead migrants were found and one person was reported missing after a boat sank off Mahdia. In October, the bodies of 15 people, believed to have been migrants, were recovered by the Tunisian authorities in Monastir.

The boats in which many sub-Saharan African migrants travel are often unseaworthy and overcrowded.

Ocean Viking crew rescue 34

Also on Thursday, the crew of the Ocean Viking rescued 34 migrants from an "overcrowded boat" that had set off from Libya, said the organization SOS Mediterranee, which runs the Ocean Viking rescue ship.

Shortly after carrying out the rescue, an unidentified fast boat approached the Ocean Viking and told it to leave the area, although the Ocean Viking crew state that they were in international waters at the time. The boat then left and broke off radio contact, SOS Mediterranee said.

Not long after, the crew came across a capsized boat. They said despite carrying out extensive searches, no survivors were found.

On the social media platform X, SOS Mediterranee wrote that the capsized vessel still had two engines attached, leading it to fear that the passengers had drowned. Had Libyan authorities intercepted the occupants and returned them to Libya, they would probably have removed the boat's motors, SOS Mediterranee said.

The organization labeled the approach of these fast boats a "new worrying trend." It said in recent months it had witnessed "a proliferation of state and non-state actors in international waters off Libya" and that "unidentified armed actors were endangering the lives of survivors and crew."

The boat's crew have been told to proceed to the Italian port of Ravenna for disembarkation, several days' sail away from the rescue position, SOS Mediterranee said.

Life Support also rescues 34

The Italian medical humanitarian organization Emergency, which manages the rescue ship Life Support, also said it rescued 34 migrants on Thursday. Those on board included one unaccompanied child, stated the organization in a press release.

The organization also reported that it was approached by two "unidentified boats" and told to get out of the Libyan search and rescue zone. One of the boats, stated Emergency, "continued to monitor the Life Support ship for hours."

Those rescued said they had set off from Zuwara in Libya on December 11. Many were from Sudan and Pakistan, reported Emergency.

The crew has been ordered to sail to the Italian port of Ancona for disembarkation.

With Reuters and AFP

Note from the editors: Humanitarian rescue ships, when on mission, are only active in a limited area of the Mediterranean Sea, and only at arbitrary times. The presence of these NGO ships is no guarantee that individuals crossing the Mediterranean Sea on unseaworthy boats will be spotted and rescued. Distress cases are very common for boats unequipped to make a journey on the open sea, and shipwrecks and disappearances, including unrecorded ones, happen regularly. The Central Mediterranean remains one of the deadliest migration routes worldwide.