At least two people, including a child, have died and six others are missing after a migrant boat sank in international waters near Tunisia’s Gulf of Gabes, according to the humanitarian group Sea-Watch. Sea-Watch’s rescue vessel Aurora found a nearly deflated rubber dinghy at about 4 a.m. on Tuesday with five survivors and the bodies of two people on board. Another 23 survivors had reached the Hasdrubal gas platform, about 100 kilometers from the Tunisian coast, after the boat sank. The 28 people rescued included five women and a toddler. Survivors told rescuers that at least six people were still missing, including three children from the same family. It remains unclear whether the recovered child was one of those reported missing.
The migrants and refugees rescued came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Pakistan and Nigeria. The circumstances of the shipwreck, including when and where the boat departed, remain unclear. The vessel was operating near the boundary of the Libyan and Tunisian search-and-rescue zones. The Aurora was assigned Lampedusa in Italy as its place of safety and was carrying the 28 survivors and the two recovered bodies. The tragedy comes amid continued migration across the Central Mediterranean. IOM data lists 997 people dead or missing on the route in 2026, while more than 22,000 sea arrivals have been recorded in Italy so far this year.
