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Mediterranean: An NGO employee uses binoculars to search for boats with migrants between Lampedusa and the North African coast
Photo: Oliver Weiken / picture alliance / dpa
At least 13 Sudanese refugees have died and 27 people are missing in a boat accident off the Tunisian coast. The boat sank shortly after setting sail - while trying to cross the Mediterranean towards Europe. The boat set off from the Tunisian coastal town of Sfax, a Tunisian judicial official said. There were 42 people on board, all Sudanese. Two people were rescued.
Tunisia has replaced Libya as the main exit country for people fleeing poverty and conflict in other parts of Africa and the Middle East towards Europe. Disasters occur again and again when boats carrying migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who want to get to Italy sink off the Tunisian coast.
Last year, the Tunisian coast guard recovered the bodies of nearly 1,000 people who drowned off the Tunisian coast, authorities said. That is more than in any previous year.
aeh/AP/dpa/Reuters