TUNIS, Tunisia, June 3 (UPI) -- The bodies of 150 refugees have been recovered from a boat that sank off Tunisia and another 120 are missing, the United Nations said Friday.
"The authorities have managed to recover 150 bodies so far," Firas Kayal, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Tunisia, told The New York Times. "The search operation is still going on."
The Wave, a 100-foot fishing vessel, left Tripoli, Libya, Saturday with some 850 migrants crammed aboard and ran aground off Tunisia's Kerkennah Islands Wednesday, said Col. Lotfi Baili of the Tunisian coast guard. He said 578 people were rescued.
Baili said the passengers from Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh were fleeing the war in Libya and trying to enter Europe.
The survivors were taken to Sfax, Tunisia, and are being transferred to a refugee camp near the Libyan border, Kayal said.
Survivors told UNHCR the crew was unqualified and food and water ran out before the accident.
Italy has appealed for European aid to cope with the refugee influx.
