Officials announced on Monday that sixteen migrants perished in shipwrecks off the shores of Tunisia and Western Sahara, as North Africa sees an increase in maritime crossings to Europe, news agency AFP reported. Much of the North African coast has become a key entry point for irregular migrants and asylum seekers, especially from other regions of the continent, embarking on risky journeys in sometimes decrepit boats in search of a better life.
According to local court spokesperson Faouzi Masmoudi, at least 11 migrants perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia's second city of Sfax, revising a previous toll of four casualties.
Masmoudi stated that 44 individuals are still missing, while two others were recovered from the boat, which had 57 passengers on board, all of them were from Sub-Saharan African nations.
Survivors of the sinking near Tunisia's Kerkennah Islands in the Mediterranean Sea reported the improvised boat left from a beach north of the coastal city of Sfax during the weekend.
Masmoudi told AFP that coastguard personnel were looking for other survivors.
The distance between Sfax and the Italian island of Lampedusa is just around 130 kilometres (80 miles).
Meanwhile, Moroccan authorities reported that the corpses of five Senegalese migrants had been discovered, and that 189 people had been rescued when their boat collapsed off the coast of Western Sahara.
A military source informed Rabat's state-owned MAP news agency that the five dead and 11 migrants in "critical condition" were brought to a hospital in Dakhla, the disputed Western Sahara's second city on the Atlantic coast.
The boat set sail from "a country located south of the kingdom" and was its route to Spain's Canary Islands before being discovered near the coast of Guerguart, just north of Mauritania.
It was in a "difficult situation", the source was quoted by AFP in its report.