The German volunteer group ResQship tells the AFP news agency that they managed to save 22 people on board the boat Nadir and then these survivors were taken to the town of Lampedusa in Italy.
The survivors were men, women and children from Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and Mali, says the captain of the Nadir, Ingo Werth.
The remains of two men were recovered by Nadir’s crew.
The migrant boat sank in the night between Saturday and Sunday and the victims had been in the water for two hours before Nadir arrived.
In total, around 40 migrants had been on board the boat when it left the port city of Sfax in Tunisia. It is believed to have cost them roughly SEK 10,000 each to get a place on board for the trip.
In recent days, thousands of migrants have come across the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Lampedusa. Sunday’s event is one in a series of tragedies where tens of people have drowned or frozen to death in their attempts to get to Europe.