At least nine people die, six missing as boat sinks off Tunisia 

Tunisia’s coastguard has recovered the bodies of nine people while six are still missing after their boat sank off the Tunisian coast, a judicial official says of the latest refugee boat disaster in the Mediterranean.

The coastguard on Thursday rescued at least 27 people who were on the boat when it broke down and took on water due to bad weather. According to survivors’ testimonies, the boat had been carrying at least 42 people when it sank.

Judge Farid Ben Jha told the Reuters news agency that a search was under way for at least six people who had been on the boat when it went down off the coast of Chebba.

All people on the boat were from sub-Saharan African countries.

Tunisia and neighbouring Libya have become key departure points for refugees, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of better lives in Europe.

In October, the bodies of 16 people were recovered by Tunisia’s coastguard. At least 15 Tunisian people died in September, including three infants, and 10 went missing after their boat sank off the Tunisian coast at Djerba as they sought to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Italy, whose island of Lampedusa is only 150km (90 miles) from Tunisia, is often their first port of call. Every year, tens of thousands of people try to make the crossing.

According to United Nations statistics, which are based largely on survivor accounts, 1,536 people have died or gone missing and are presumed dead in the central Mediterranean so far this year.

A total of 64,234 have reached Italy through Thursday, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior. That’s down by 58 percent from last year when 153,211 had arrived in the same period.

The International Organization for Migration said more than 30,309 refugees have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.