March 19 (Somali Magazine) – A civil protection official told Reuters on Saturday that the death toll from a migrant shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia on Friday had grown to 20 individuals, the most of them were Syrians attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Italy.
After recovering 12 dead on Friday, the coastguard found eight bodies on Saturday, he added. The hunt was still ongoing.
Several people have drowned off the coast of Tunisia in recent months, and the number of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya to Italy has increased.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of people have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean, many fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.