File photo for representational purposes only.
Tunis: Twenty-seven migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defence official told AFP on Thursday.
The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands, aimed to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defence in the nearby city of Sfax.
Tunisia, as well as neighbouring Libya, is a key departure point for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe for a better life. Italy's island of Lampedusa is only 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Tunisia.
Totalling 110, the migrants were on board two makeshift boats that set sail off "the coast near Sfax on the night of December 31 to January 1," a National Guard official said on condition of anonymity.
Searches were still underway for other possible missing passengers, said the official.
Sdiri said 15 out of the 83 rescued were taken to a hospital, without providing further details.
The National Guard, which oversees the coast guard, later confirmed the death toll in a statement, adding that a baby was among the dead.
It was the latest such tragedy off Tunisia over the past month.
On December 31, the National Guard said two Tunisian migrants, one of them a five-year-old, died after their boat broke down off Tunisia's northern coast.
Days earlier on December 18, the National Guard said at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off Sfax, with five rescued.
And on December 12, the coast guard rescued 27 African migrants near Jebeniana, north of Sfax, but 15 were reported dead or missing.
