The toll is still provisional, but it is already heavy. At least two people, one of them a child, died and six others are missing after a migrant boat sank in the central Mediterranean on the night of September 28 to 29, 2026. Three children are among the missing. The boat went down on the line between the Libyan and Tunisian search and rescue zones, off the Gulf of Gabès.
The first survivors were found in the early hours of September 29 by the Aurora, a rescue ship run by the German charity Sea-Watch. The crew had been alerted by the emergency hotline Alarm Phone. They came across a rubber dinghy that had almost completely deflated. Five people were still on board, alive, next to two bodies.
Other survivors had found an unlikely place to wait for help. Twenty-three migrants had climbed onto Hasdrubal, an offshore oil and gas platform. Once Tunisian authorities gave their approval, the Aurora took them on board. In all, 28 people were rescued, among them five women, a newborn baby and a young child. Early accounts say the passengers came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
What the survivors told the rescuers is harrowing. According to Sea-Watch, two women watched the waves carry their children away. The Aurora then set course for the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The charity did not hide its anger. « Governments celebrate falling arrival numbers as a success. We see what that ‘success’ means: at least two dead and six missing, including three children, » said spokesperson Julia Winkler. Sea-Watch is calling for a state-run European search and rescue programme, something the Mediterranean has lacked for years.
The figures support that criticism. Just over 22,000 people have reached Italy by sea since January, down from more than 50,000 over the same period of 2025. The drop in arrivals has not made the crossing any safer, though. More than 1,970 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, which keeps it among the deadliest migration routes in the world.
Given the state of the dinghy and conditions at sea, there is little hope of finding the six missing people alive. The tragedy reopens the debate over Europe’s migration policies and its cooperation with countries on the southern shore, Tunisia and Libya among them. Rescue groups working at sea argue that this cooperation shifts the danger elsewhere rather than reducing it.