Eleven bodies have been recovered following the sinking of a boat carrying migrants off the coast of Tunisia

Tunisia’s coastguard has recovered eleven bodies following the sinking of a boat carrying Tunisian migrants over the weekend while en route to Italy. Three others remain unaccounted for, according to the National Guard’s statement on Sunday.

Coastguard, military, and civil protection teams, supported by two helicopters, persisted in their search for the missing individuals.

The boat, which departed early on Thursday with 15 predominantly young individuals on board, sank off the Tunisian coast, and as of now, only one person has been rescued alive, according to the head of a migrant rights group on Saturday.

The man who survived reported that he had been adrift at sea for 48 hours before being rescued by a commercial vessel.

Among those on board were seven members of the same family and a man with his pregnant wife, according to the head of the Tunisian Observatory for Human Rights who spoke to Reuters.

All of the migrants hailed from the Ben Guerdane area in southeastern Tunisia, and dozens of young people assembled late on Saturday in the town near the Libyan border to urge that search operations be expedited.

Police deployed teargas to break up the gathering of protesters.

The central Mediterranean route from the North African coast stands as one of the world’s most perilous migration paths, utilized by migrants from Africa and the Middle East aiming to reach Europe, frequently in overcrowded or unseaworthy vessels.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and numerous other human rights and humanitarian organizations stated last month that a migration agreement between Tunisia and the European Union has exacerbated and legitimized severe abuses against migrants and asylum seekers in Tunisia.

The groups urged the EU to halt funding for migration and border-control operations that involve Tunisian security forces.