At least 40 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found dead on Wednesday following a shipwreck off Tunisia, while 30 were rescued, a judicial spokesman told AFP.

“Initial investigations indicate that there were 70 people on board the vessel,” said Walid Chtabri, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Mahdia.

“40 bodies, including infants, were recovered, and 30 people were rescued,” Chtabri added. “They were all from countries in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Tunisia, whose coast is some 145 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, is a key transit country for thousands of African migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea each year.

Over 55,000 irregular migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, according to the UN Refugee Agency’s latest figures.

The majority of them had departed from Libya, while nearly 4,000 left from Tunisia, the agency said.

The central Mediterranean route is considered particularly dangerous, with 32,803 people dead or missing since 2014, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

With the European Union’s mounting efforts to curb migrant arrivals, many irregular migrants feel stranded in Tunisia.

In 2023, Tunisia signed a $290 million deal with the European Union, nearly half of which was earmarked for tackling irregular migration.

The deal, strongly supported by Italy’s hard-right government, aimed to bolster Tunisia’s capacity to prevent boats from leaving its shore.

Tunisian President Kais Saied, earlier this year, called on the IOM to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.