Fifteen migrants of Tunisian origin went missing and four others were rescued after a boat sank off the eastern coast of the country, the coast guard said in a statement on Wednesday.

The testimonies of the survivors stated that all those on board were Tunisians who set off "from the coast of Kerkennah Island (east) with 15 other people on the night of April 17, when their boat was exposed to water leakage."

The four survivors, who were swimming, were found and rescued by a sailor on Tuesday about 21 nautical miles (about 34 km) from the area's fishing port, according to the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to search for the missing.

The participants in the illegal immigration process of Tunisian nationality live in marginalized interior governorates that record the weakest development rates and the highest youth unemployment rates in the country, such as Sidi Bouzid (center), Kasserine (west) and Kairouan (center).

And with the improvement of weather conditions, there has been an increase in recent times the frequency of attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea by migrants hoping to reach the nearby Italian coasts.

For its part, the Tunisian National Guard announced earlier that it had rescued or intercepted "14,406 people, including 13,138 of them from sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest are Tunisians," during the first three months of the year.

This number is nearly five times what was counted during the same period in 2022, and according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, more than 14,000 immigrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, compared to more than 5,300 during the same period last year, and 4,300 in 2021.