Turkiye’s coastguard arrived at the scene after a fishing boat in the area raised the alarm at 10:47am (0747 GMT) and 19 migrants were rescued, Yerlikaya said on the X social media platform. “One helicopter, four coastguard vessels and a diving team were involved in the search and rescue operation”, he added.

Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief said on Tuesday that his office was following up on reports of a mass grave in the desert along the Libya-Tunisia border, after the bodies of at least 65 migrants were found at another site this year.

Volker Turk denounced widespread violations against migrants and refugees in Libya, which straddles a dangerous transit route through the Sahara Desert and across the southern Mediterranean.

Abuses against migrants were being “perpetrated at scale, with impunity” by both state and non-state actors, Turk said, listing crimes including human trafficking, torture, forced labour, extortion, starvation, detention and mass expulsions.