Two Dead, Six Missing After Migrant Boat Sinks Off Tunisian Coast

A Sea-Watch rescue boat has rescued 28 people after a migrant boat sank off the coast of Tunisia. Two bodies were also recovered, including that of a child.

At least six people are still missing, including three children from the same family, Sea-Watch said on Tuesday.

The rescue took place in the early hours of Sept. 29 in international waters near the Gulf of Gabes. Sea-Watch’s rescue vessel Aurora found five survivors and two bodies on a rubber dinghy that had almost deflated.

Another 23 people had made it to the Hasdrubal gas platform after the boat sank.

The survivors told Sea-Watch rescuers that at least six people were missing. The group included three children from one family. It is not yet known whether the child whose body was recovered was one of the three missing children.

The people rescued were from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Sudan. They included five women and a toddler.

The Aurora reached the rubber dinghy at about 4 a.m. The crew had been alerted to the boat by the civil distress hotline Alarm Phone.

Five survivors were on the dinghy. The crew gave them life jackets and brought them aboard. They also recovered the two bodies.

The Aurora then headed to the Hasdrubal gas platform after receiving permission from the Tunisian maritime rescue coordination centre.

The platform is about 100 km (62 miles) from the Tunisian coast. It is in international waters and inside Tunisia’s search-and-rescue zone.

The other 23 survivors had reached the platform after the shipwreck. The rescue crew gave them life jackets and brought them onto the Aurora. A toddler was among them.

Sea-Watch said it was still not clear how the boat sank. It was also not known when it had left or whether it had started its journey from Tunisia or Libya.

Italian authorities assigned Lampedusa as the place of safety for the people rescued. The Aurora was heading to the Italian island and was expected to arrive on Tuesday afternoon.

Sea-Watch spokesperson Julia Winkler called for a state-run European search-and-rescue programme. The shipwreck happened on the central Mediterranean route used by people travelling from North Africa to Italy.

Figures from the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as provided in the source material, show that 21,897 people had crossed the central Mediterranean to Italy from the beginning of 2026. Most had come from Libya and Tunisia.

The figures also show 997 deaths during the same period.

By comparison, more than 49,000 people arrived in Italy by sea during the same period in 2025. The number of deaths was 855, according to the IOM figures provided.

Sea-Watch separately cited Italian interior ministry data showing more than 22,000 sea arrivals in Italy so far in 2026, compared with more than 50,000 during the same period last year.

Sea-Watch also said more than 1,970 people had died or gone missing in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe during the same period.

References: Reuters, Sea Watch