At least 13 Tunisians are missing after a migrant boat sank off the Tunisian coast while sailing towards Italy, and two people were rescued, the head of a migrant rights group said on Saturday (August 22, 2026).
Abdelkebir, whose group monitors migration issues. President Kais Saied said in 2023 that the influx was aimed at changing the country’s demographic makeup.
One of the two survivors told rescuers in a local boat they had been stranded at sea for hours after their vessel capsized. The second survivor was in critical condition, said Mr. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and dozens of other human rights and humanitarian groups said in a statement last month that the EU-Tunisia migration deal had fuelled and normalised serious abuses against migrants and asylum seekers in Tunisia. Tunisia has not commented on the statement but has repeatedly said it is bearing the brunt of a major migration influx.
The boat set off early on Thursday, Mostafa Abdelkebir, the head of the Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters.
