Dozens Drown as Migrant Boat Sinks Off Tunisian Coast En Route to Italy

"We started to sink almost immediately, around midnight," explains a 21-year-old Egyptian survivor, who recounts what happened with tears in his eyes. "They died one by one, every minute, we lost one."

Out of the 90 occupants of the boat, only about thirty migrants were able to be rescued by a Tunisian fishing boat, while the other 60 drowned. There was only one Moroccan among the survivors.

After a long journey, more than 80 migrants of different nationalities embarked on an inflatable boat bound for Italy, the shore of all hopes, writes the website La Croix. The majority are Bangladeshis, but there were also Egyptians, Moroccans and Chadians.

Stranded in Tunisia where the social situation is precarious and there is no asylum law, the surviving migrants have only 60 days to choose between returning home, applying for asylum through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or subsisting on their own in Tunisia.

"We have lost so much, I have nothing left, we still hope to go to Europe to earn enough money and come back home," explains a rescued migrant. "But I never want to go back to sea again."