At least 200 migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean from Libya into Europe were missing Thursday after having fallen out of their capsized vessel during a rescue operation about 20 miles off the coast of Tunisia, the official Tunisian news agency reported. Two were reported to have died during the rescue.
The operation, conducted Wednesday by Tunisian military boats, succeeded in rescuing about 570 of the roughly 800 migrants who had packed onto a fishing vessel and set off from Libya hoping to reach Italy, the news agency reported. The survivors were taken to the Tunisian coast in order to be transferred Thursday morning to a refugee camp at the Libyan border.
The others remained unaccounted for, some having fallen into the water in a crushing scramble to reach the military boats after their own vessel had broken down and capsized in rough weather near Tunisia’s Kerkennah Islands, the news agency reported. The report said the Tunisian rescuers were also overwhelmed by the number of stranded migrants, which may have precipitated a deadly rush for the available space on the rescue vessels.
The migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, were the latest to attempt the dangerous voyage from North Africa this year. While many thousands have landed in Italy’s Lampedusa Island, mostly seeking asylum, hundreds more have died at sea. In May, 600 died after their boat broke apart off the Libyan coast.
