The Tunisian coast guard recovered 901 bodies of drowned migrants off its coast from Jan. 1 to July 20 this year, the country's interior minister said in July, marking an unprecedented number of victims off the country's coasts, Reuters reported.
Fifty-seven people have been rescued from the two boats which sunk off the island of Lampedusa in rough seas, the coast guard said on Sunday.
The boats had likely set off from Tunisia's migration hotspot Sfax, the coast guard said.
The North African country is facing a record wave of migration this year and frequent catastrophes of boats of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa heading to Italian coasts sinking.
AMK/PR