Tunisian authorities on Thursday said they rescued 150 irregular migrants, including sub-Saharan nationals, off the eastern coast.
Tunisian National Guard maritime units carried out three separate operations off Sfax and Mahdia, eventually rescuing 150 migrants from Tunisia and sub-Saharan countries, the National Guard said in a statement.
In the first quarter of 2023, some 501 irregular migration operations were thwarted and 14,406 migrants, including 13,138 sub-Saharan migrants, were rescued off the Tunisian coast.
According to the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), some 132 people died or went missing during clandestine immigration attempts off the Tunisian coast in the first quarter of 2010.
Tunisia, some parts of whose coastline are less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, regularly records attempts by migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, to reach Italy.