The defending champions went in front after 33 minutes through Santos, who collected a misplaced back pass by Bennie McCarthy and his shot slipped through the hands of Bafana goalkeeper Calvin Marlin for his fourth goal of the competition.

They doubled their lead in the 57th minute courtesy of Selim Ben Achour who smashed home a low cross from the right taken by skipper Hatem Trabelsi.

In the earlier Group C match played here the Syli Stars of Guinea recorded a dramatic 2-1 victory over Zambia to book their place in the last eight.

Tunisia and Guinea, who have both recorded six points from two matches, will clash Monday here to decide the group winners.

Bafana skipper Sibusiso Zuma said he was disappointed that his team had been eliminated from the competition at such an early stage.

"We are all disappointed that we failed to go beyond the group rounds. We did not have enough time to understand ourselves and today we made a few mistakes. But overall I can't blame the boys because they gave it their best shot," he said.

Tunisia coach Roger Lemerre said his team were on course to successfully defend the championship they won on home soil two years ago.

"We were a bit scared of South Africa because they beat us in a friendly at home but we prepared specially for this game and the result of this preparation was evident today," he said.

"We are the champions and now more than ever, we are here to defend our title."

Tunisia went on the attack from the first whistle as Santos and Karim Haggui came close to putting their names on the scoresheet. Santos even swept home a low cross on nine minutes but his effort was ruled offside.

But Bafana somehow survived the wave after wave of attack by the Carthage Eagles to launch their own attack.

Skipper Zuma, initially an injury doubt for this encounter, saw his lob from the edge of the box after 16 minutes go wide off target.

Tunisia continued to mount pressure and were rewarded 12 minutes into the second half by a sweetly struck Ben Achour goal.

And almost immediately goalkeeper Marlin was forced to dive full length to block a shot by Adel Chedli, who found himself all alone inside the box. A lurking Santos failed to squezze the rebound.

South Africa responded well in the 64th minute when Zuma's spectacular flying shot was cleared off the goal line.

Siyabonga Nkosi replaced Zuma late on to prompt what appeared to be a South African revival but they found the Tunisian defence marshalled by Bolton star Radhi Jaidi uncompromising.