Arab News

TUNIS, 30 June 2003 — Nine people drowned yesterday when a ship carrying illegal immigrants of various nationalities sank off Tunisia’s northeast coast, witnesses said. Earlier reports had spoken of at least three dead in the incident off the fishing port of Sidi Daoud, on Tunisia’s notheastern coast, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Italy.

A witness told AFP by telephone that six bodies had been pulled onto the beach, and three others were found later. They were taken to a hospital in the area.

Coastguards and the navy rescued 35 people from the vessel, which went down early Sunday, and were searching for more survivors, the official TAP news agency said.

It was not immediately known how many people in total had been on the vessel.

Boatloads of poor illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan and north Africa, eager to start new lives in Euorpe, regularly depart Libyan and Tunisian coasts headed for nearby Italy. On June 20 a boat packed with hundreds of would-be African immigrants sank off the city of Sfax on Tunisia’s eastern coast, with only 41 of an estimated 250 on board believed to have survived.