A migrant boat believed to be carrying around 200 people has sunk south of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italian authorities said today.
An Italian navy spokesman said vessels from the Mare Nostrum task force, set up after hundreds of people drowned in migrant boat disasters last year, were on their way to the scene.
No further details were immediately available.
Yesterday at least 40 people died and 51 others were rescued after a boat carrying mostly sub-Saharan African migrants sank off Libya’s coast east of Tripoli.
Libya's porous borders with its sub-Saharan neighbours and its proximity to Italy and Malta across the Mediterranean have made the North African country a common transit route for migrants trying to reach Europe.
In March, Italy's navy rescued more than 4,000 migrants from overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean sea south of Sicily in just four days.
Many migrants pay more than $1,000 (€726) to criminal gangs for the sea journey from Libya, where the government struggles to control a country still full of weapons and brigades of former rebels since the civil war that ousted Col Muammar Gadafy in 2011.
Reuters