The Tunisian Red Crescent announced on Saturday that 43 people were missing after a boat carrying 127 migrants sank on Friday night off the southern coast of Tunisia.

"84 migrants were rescued and 43 others went missing after a boat carrying 127 migrants sank off the coast of Zarzis (south)," the director of the Tunisian Red Crescent branch in the Medenine governorate told AFP.

The migrants set off from the Libyan coast, according to testimonies collected by the Tunisian Red Crescent from survivors.

For its part, the Tunisian Ministry of Defense said in a statement Saturday that the navy "saved on Friday night, Saturday, in cooperation with fishing boats, 84 illegal immigrants of different nationalities from Bangladesh, Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt and Chad." The ministry did not specify in its statement the number of missing persons.

The survivors, aged between three and forty years, were on a boat that sank at the site northeast of Zarzis, according to the ministry.

The survivors reported that they sailed from the coast of Zuwara, Libya, "on the night between 28 and 29 June, with the intention of stealthily crossing the maritime border in the direction of European space."

They were taken to the port of Zarzis to be handed over later to the National Guard to take legal measures in their regard.

On the other hand, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its sadness on Sunday and regret over the continued loss of irregular migrants at sea while trying to reach the countries of the European continent.

This came in a statement, in which the Turkish Foreign Ministry commented on the loss of 43 out of 127 African migrants, stranded in the Mediterranean while trying to cross to Europe illegally.

"This tragedy in the Mediterranean is not the first and it will not be the last, and Turkey is saddened by these painful events and the losses that are taking place on the migration routes to Europe," the Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that 866 migrants lost their lives in the waters of the Mediterranean during 2021, and that saving their lives is a humanitarian and legal responsibility that falls on the shoulders of states.

The statement stressed that the European Union's failure to coordinate the responsibility for search and rescue at sea and leave this responsibility to transit countries, represents a threat to the right of migrants to life.

The statement stressed that Turkey and Libya are not the source of irregular migration, and that the reason for mixed migration movements is the persistence of instability, conflict and poverty in Africa, Afghanistan and Syria.

The statement pointed out that it is not possible to solve the migration problem without eliminating its causes, and that any other measure will only increase the suffering of migrants and asylum seekers and deaths at sea.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry called on the international community once again to find solutions to the problems that lie behind the mixed migratory movements in the region and to share responsibility and burdens fairly.