THE death toll from a ship packed with African migrants that sank off the Tunisian coast this week has risen to 61, a local official said Saturday.

Tunisian search teams recovered the bodies of 13 men and women Thursday, according to the Defense Ministry. Earlier in the week, the bodies of two toddlers and 20 adults washed up on the beaches of Kerkennah Island off the Mediterranean coastal city of Sfax, and 19 other bodies were found floating in nearby waters.

The Coast Guard had recovered more bodies including a baby, raising the death toll to 61, Mourad Mechri, a civil protection official, said.

Navy units and divers from the civil protection services are continuing to search the area for other possible victims, the health director for the Sfax region, Ali Ayadi, told The Associated Press.

Many of the victims were buried in Sfax on Wednesday, Ayadi said. All the victims are from sub-Saharan Africa, notably Cote d’Ivoire, except for the Tunisian captain, according to Tunisian authorities.

A nongovernmental organization that works on migration and refugee issues, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, said the latest deaths are “the inevitable result of restrictive and inhuman migration policies adopted by the European Union which are limited to a security approach to migration issues.” (SD-CGTN)