Coastguards have recovered the our bodies of 41 migrants off the Tunisian coast.
A senior official mentioned greater than 200 folks had drowned within the final 10 days making an attempt to succeed in Europe.
Tunisian morgues had been operating out of house and authorities had been struggling to include the surge in tried crossings, he mentioned.
The north African nation has taken over from neighbouring Libya as the primary embarkation level for Europe-bound migrants.
Elements of the Tunisian shoreline are solely about 150 kilometres from Lampedusa, an Italian island regularly used as a crossing level to the mainland.
Tunisia has change into the primary departure level for folks fleeing battle and dire poverty within the Center East and Africa, in search of a greater life in Europe.
“On Tuesday, we had greater than 200 our bodies, properly past the capability of the hospital, which creates a well being drawback,” mentioned Faouzi Masmoudi, justice official within the port metropolis of Sfax the place the central morgue for an space of round one million folks is sited.
“There’s a drawback with giant numbers of corpses arriving on the shore. We do not know who they’re or what shipwreck they got here from and the quantity is rising.”
Mr Masmoudi mentioned funerals had been held “virtually on daily basis to cut back the stress on hospitals”.
He mentioned DNA swabs are taken from every physique earlier than they’re buried to assist identification processes by kinfolk.
The retrieved our bodies had been in a decomposed state which prompt they had been within the water for a number of days, a nationwide guard official Houssem Eddine Jebabli, instructed Reuters information company.
He mentioned the cumulative whole of fatalities was unprecedented over such a brief interval.
Tunisia has change into a transit level for irregular migrants, principally sub-Saharan Africans, who search to succeed in Europe by sea.
There have been various experiences of the variety of migrant deaths at sea, with the UN’s Lacking Migrants Venture saying 300 folks had died within the Central Mediterranean within the final 10 days alone.