TUNIS (AFP) - Seventeen would-be immigrants drowned and 47 were missing after a boat that was to have carried them across the Mediterranean broke up and sank off the Tunisian coast at the weekend, the Tunisian navy and eyewitnesses revealed.
The boat, which was carrying 75 people in all, sank overnight in the early hours of Sunday, the navy said, in a statement carried Monday by the official TAP news agency. The vessel was attempting to sail to Italy.
Eyewitnesses said the boat broke in two around an hour after it had sailed overnight from a beach in Sousse province, on the country's eastern coast. The navy said a helicopter, a launch and a ship were sent out to try and find survivors.
Eleven of the occupants were either pulled alive from the water by the navy or managed to swim to shore.
Seventeen were known to have drowned and the remaining 47 were missing.
An official statement added that five of the occupants were Tunisian and the remaining 70 Moroccan. Of the 11 survivors, 10 were Moroccans and one a Tunisian.
The weekly Tunis Hebdo newspaper meanwhile said the people in the boat were part of a group of some 280 who had gathered with the intention of trying to reach Europe.
The paper said that after the sinking of the boat most of the others -- around 200 in all -- were arrested in the region around the town of Nabeul, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital Tunis.
Tunis Hebdo said the non-Tunisians in the group had entered the country legally.
The beach from where the boat sailed was some 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Tunis, between the coastal towns of Hergla and El Kantaoui.
Every year, thousands of people risk their lives by trying to get into southern Europe illegally, mainly by paying middlemen to get them across the Mediterranean on often ramshackle, overcrowded boats.
Many of them set off from Libya, which has a 2,000-kilometer-long (1,200 mile) coastline, or Tunisia, with 1,300 kilometers of coastline.
They often sail towards the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is only some 100 kilometers from the Tunisian coast.
At the weekend, a group of 223 illegal immigrants arrived on Lampedusa and another group of 200 was spotted at sea, port officials said.
Around 900 people have landed on Lampedusa's shores in the past week alone, overwhelming a welcome center meant to accommodate 200.
In January, Tunisian lawmakers passed a law aimed at better fighting illegal immigration to Europe.
The new law brought existing statutes into line with international conventions on illegal immigration and allowing closer control of Tunisia's territorial waters.
It also set up a system of checks for maritime vessels which could be used to carry would-be immigrants to Europe.
The law allows the authorities to maintain a logbook for every sea-going vessel in the country, from the time it is built until it is scrapped.
Any changes of ownership are supposed to be mentioned in the logbook, giving the authorities greater control over who is trying to acquire a boat and making it easier to determine liability in the event a vessel is used to illegally carry passengers to Europe.
Anyone violating the logbook rules is subject to a fine.
Almost 950 people have drowned since mid-2001 attempting to make the crossing.