Tunisia’s Coast Guard says it has recovered the bodies of nine African migrants and rescued 29 after their boat sank off the coast of Monastir as they attempted to reach the Italian coast.

A recovery mission is underway to retrieve potentially drowned people in this new disaster off the Tunisian coast, says spokesperson Farid Ben Jaha.

Earlier in the week, the coast guard announced 29 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries had been recovered after three vessels capsized.

It also "rescued 11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank" off the central-eastern coast, it said in a statement, citing three separate boat sinking incidents.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says scores of people die every ten days in dangerous crossings off the coast of North Africa.

People fleeing poverty and violence in Sudan's Darfur region, West Africa, and other parts of the continent have for years used Tunisia as a springboard for often perilous attempts to reach safety and better lives in Europe.

The Missing Migrants Project says over 12,000 migrants have died or been unaccounted for since 2014.