Rescuers search for five missing after migrant boat sinks off Tunisia

TUNIS (Reuters): A boat carrying at least 16 migrants who were trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy sank off the Tunisian coast on Tuesday, with at least five people missing and one body recovered, a security official said.

The official told Reuters 10 people had been rescued.

Coast Guard units were continuing to search for the missing people who were on board the boat that capsized off the coast at the northern city of Bizerte.

In recent months, dozens of people have drowned as the frequency of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya toward Italy has increased.

Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous journey crossing the Mediterranean in the past years.