Tunis | Nearly 500 migrants who left Libya were rescued on Friday by the Tunisian Navy after the capsize of the boat carrying them off Tunisia, the defense ministry said.
“A high seas patrol supported by units of the Navy and the coast guard rescued 487 illegal migrants of different Arab, Asian and African nationalities on Friday at dawn,” the ministry said in a statement.
The boat had left the Libyan sides and was heading towards “the European area”, added the ministry.
Plunged into chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya has become a hub for tens of thousands of migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea.
Among the migrants rescued Friday after their boat capsized off Sfax, in eastern Tunisia, include 162 Egyptians, 104 Bangladeshis, 81 Syrians, 78 Moroccans, 13 Eritreans and 11 Sudanese, according to the statement.
Thirteen women and 93 children were among the passengers, the same source added.
The Tunisian authorities had announced on Sunday that they had intercepted more than 200 migrants the day before, who were trying to reach the Italian coast, during nine different operations.
On October 31, the coast guard announced that it had foiled six emigration attempts and “rescued” 125 migrants, including 112 from sub-Saharan Africa.
Two weeks earlier, at least four people had lost their lives and 19 had been reported missing after a boat carrying migrants, all of them Tunisians, sank off the Tunisian east coast in the Mahdia region.
In recent years, thousands of migrants, from sub-Saharan Africa but also from Tunisia, have sought to emigrate mainly via the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, located just 140 kilometers from the east coast of Tunisia.