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At least 10 North African migrants died when their rubber boat overturned in the southern Mediterranean while almost a thousand more from a total of seven vessels were rescued in a single day this week, Italian and Tunisian authorities said Wednesday, The Daily Star reported.

The Italian coast guard said in a statement that one of its ships in the area had rescued 121 people after their boat capsized Tuesday some 50 miles north of Libya. Ten bodies were recovered. Tunisian naval forces rescued all 81 migrants onboard another boat that had started taking on water off near the Tunisian island of Djerba Tuesday night, the country’s Defense Ministry said.

Several merchant ships assisted in migrant rescues from seven separate boats in a 24-hour period, bringing to safety almost 1,000 migrants, including 30 children and 50 women, one of them pregnant, the coast guard said.

They were identified as mostly Syrian, Palestinian, Tunisian, Libyan and sub-Saharan Africans, and they are being taken to Italian ports.