The bodies, which were in “complete decomposition”, were rejected by the sea on Saturday and Sunday, added Farid Ben Jha, spokesman for the Mahdia and Monastir courts, who said it was not possible to confirm whether they were irregular migrants or even whether they were all on the same boat.
Along with Libya, Tunisia, whose coast is in some places less than 150 km from Sicily, Italy, is the main point of departure in North Africa for migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe.
Every year, thousands of people from sub-Saharan African countries try to make the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean.
Thousands of Tunisians want to leave their country in the face of economic difficulties and political tensions since President Kaïs Saied's coup in the summer of 2021.
At the end of September, 36 migrants - 20 Tunisians and 16 Egyptians - who had set off from Bizerte (north), were rescued by the coastguard from a broken-down boat heading for Nabeul (central-east).
Between the beginning of 2024 and June, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) recorded around 400 deaths or disappearances of migrants in shipwrecks off the Tunisian coast, after at least 1,300 deaths or disappearances in 2023.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 30,000 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the last decade, including more than 3,000 last year.
