Mediterranean Migrant Shipwrecks
A running situation · 3 stories · 42 signals
Tunisian authorities have recovered 12 bodies from a migrant boat that sank off the country's southeastern coast, updating earlier reports of at least 11 dead after the vessel capsized last week. Two people remain missing while search operations continue involving naval and air units.
The sole survivor drifted for 48 hours before a commercial vessel rescued him, the Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights said. Most of the 15 passengers were young people from Ben Guerdane, including seven members of one family.
The tragedy sparked protests in Ben Guerdane, where demonstrators blocked roads with burning tires. The International Organization for Migration says 914 migrants have died or disappeared in the central Mediterranean this year, more than double the toll from the same period in 2025.
A Panama-flagged cargo vessel, the Ocean Winner, has sunk off the eastern coast of India with 24 crew members on board, the Indian Coast Guard said on Saturday. Rescue services lost contact with the ship on Saturday, and two crew members have so far been rescued from life rafts.
The vessel was approximately 240 nautical miles off the coast of Odisha when it went down. The crew included 20 Chinese nationals, three seamen from Myanmar, and one from Bangladesh.
The Ocean Winner was carrying a cargo of iron ore from Paradip port in Odisha to Singapore, having departed the port on Thursday. Search and rescue operations are ongoing.
Mauritania's coastguard rescued 315 migrants, including 40 children and adolescents, from a disabled wooden pirogue drifting off the fishing port of Nouadhibou during the night of Wednesday to Thursday.
The overloaded vessel had departed from The Gambia carrying 191 Senegalese, 123 Gambians and one Malian national and was found adrift in what authorities described as a difficult humanitarian situation. The rescue comes days after Mauritanian forces pulled 42 migrants from another drifting boat in the same waters.
The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands remains one of the deadliest migration corridors. In July alone, 144 people died or went missing attempting the crossing, according to the UNHCR.