The Tunisian National Guard announced on Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of 29 migrants from African countries after their boats sank off the coast of the country.
A spokesman for the Guard said in a statement that "11 illegal immigrants of different African nationalities were also rescued after clandestine immigration boats sank," referring to three drowning incidents.

One of the accidents occurred 58 kilometers off the coast, and 19 bodies were recovered by a Tunisian fishing vessel after the boat sank.
In a second incident, a naval guard patrol off the city of Mahdia (center) recovered eight bodies and rescued 11 migrants after their boat sank while on its way to Italy, while two Tunisian fishing boats recovered two other bodies.

Dozens of migrants have died and others are missing in a series of drownings since President Kais Saied delivered a speech last month in which he deemed sub-Saharan Africans a demographic threat to the country and the cause of crimes.

Black immigrants in the country faced acts of violence, and hundreds of them became homeless for weeks in miserable conditions.

For years, people who have fled poverty and violence in Sudan's Darfur region, West Africa and other parts of the continent have come to Tunisia to try to reach Europe in search of a better life.

The Italian island of Lampedusa is located only 150 kilometers from the Tunisian coast, but Italy is putting pressure on the Tunisian authorities to curb immigration, and has helped boost the capabilities of the Naval Guard, which human rights organizations accuse of committing acts of violence.

In this context, the far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Friday that Tunisia's "major financial problems" threaten to spark an "unprecedented wave of migration" towards Europe.

It also confirmed its intention to send a mission to the North African country, in which the Italian and French foreign ministers would participate.

Meloni echoed comments made earlier in the week by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who warned of the risk of an economic collapse in Tunisia that could lead to new flows of migrants towards Europe.