At least 43 migrants including several Bangladeshi nationals have drowned in a shipwreck off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, while another 84 were rescued, the Tunisian Red Crescent told Reuters Saturday.
The boat had set off from Zuwara on Libya's northwest coast, carrying migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea, the humanitarian organisation said.
However, it could not be known immediately how many Bangladeshis were rescued or whether Bangladeshis were among the drowned.
The incidents of Bangladeshi migrants heading for Europe ending up in the Mediterranean have become frequent in recent months.
At least three such incidents of shipwreck were reported in international media since June 25.
According to the Bangladesh embassy in Libya -- which provides consular service in Tunisia, at least 568 Bangladeshi migrants were rescued off the Tunisian coast in the past three months.
In recent incidents, migrants were found adrift in the Mediterranean -- which is widely used by traffickers as a route for illegal migration from North African countries to reach European countries including Italy, Greece and Spain.
According to the UN, at least 760 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean between January 1 and May 31, compared to 1,400 last year.
Reuters yesterday reported that in recent months, several drowning incidents have occurred off the Tunisian coast, with an increase in the frequency of attempted crossings to Europe from Tunisia and Libya towards Italy, as the weather has improved.
"The navy rescued 84 migrants and 43 others drowned in a boat that set off from Libya's Zuwara towards Europe," Red Crescent official Mongi Slim said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing in recent years, many of them fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
Arrivals in Italy-- one of the main migrant routes into Europe-- had been falling in recent years, but numbers picked up again in 2021.
Almost 19,800 migrants have arrived since the beginning of the year against just over 6,700 in the same period last year, Reuters cited Italian interior Ministry figures as saying.
