Dozens of Migrants Drown Off Tunisia and Turkey; Hundreds Rescued Off Spain

Rescuers said Sunday that dozens of migrants had drowned off the coasts of Tunisia and Turkey, while hundreds had been rescued off Spain, as the flow of people seeking to get to Europe continued despite tightened controls.

At least 46 migrants died when their boat sank off Tunisia’s coast, the country’s Defense Ministry said Sunday. The coast guard rescued 67 others, and the operation was continuing, the ministry said in a statement.

The migrants were of Tunisian and other nationalities, according to the ministry. Security officials said the boat had been packed with about 180 migrants, including around 80 from other African countries.

Human traffickers increasingly use Tunisia as a starting point for migrants heading to Europe because Libya’s coast guard, aided by armed groups, has tried to stem the flow from that country. The migrants often depart in makeshift boats from Tunisia, heading for Sicily.

In Turkey, the coast guard said that nine migrants, including six children, had drowned in an accident off the country’s Mediterranean coast.

The migrants’ boat capsized early Sunday morning near the town of Demre in the southern province of Antalya, according to the Turkish coast guard, which said it had recovered nine bodies and rescued four other migrants. A fifth was saved by a passing fishing vessel.

The migrants said there had been 14 or 15 people on the vessel, according to the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu, and authorities said they were still searching for one other person. The migrants’ nationalities were not immediately released.

At the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, more than 857,000 reached Greece from Turkey. A 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union has drastically reduced the numbers arriving in Greece. But in March, the bodies of at least 16 people, including five children, were recovered from the sea off a Greek island after a boat smuggling migrants sank in the eastern Aegean.

The latest deaths at sea came as Spain’s maritime rescue service said it had rescued 240 people, with one other apparently drowning, who had been trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa.

The Spanish service said Sunday that its agents had spotted a body floating underwater after its rescue ship had saved 41 migrants from a sinking smugglers’ boat.

In all, the service said, it rescued the 240 from 11 small boats attempting the perilous crossing from African shores to Spain on Saturday and Sunday.

The United Nations said at least 660 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year. Through the first four months of 2018, 22,439 migrants reached European shores, with 4,409 of them arriving in Spain.