Tunisian boat capsized, 200 people are missing

Around 200 migrants are missing off the Tunisian coast after an operation to rescue about 800 people aboard a small ship that ran aground on a sandbank, the official news agency TAP reported yesterday. A rescue operation that began on Wednesday has lifted 570 people off the overcrowded vessel after it ran aground and capsized near Tunisia's Kerkennah islands, the agency said. But around 200 were still missing after they tried to scramble aboard a flotilla of rescue boats, it said. Authorities reported two dead bodies were recovered from the scene. The coastguard said the vessel had been packed with refugees from the conflict in neighbouring Libya and was on its way to the Italian island of Lampedusa when it went aground.