At least 200 people are dead after a inflatable dingies, each carrying hundreds of migrants, overturned in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The Italian coastguard have boarded and taken control of a ship carrying 450 migrants, which was abandoned by its crew off Italy’s coast.
Hundreds of migrants trying to reach Europe are feared drowned after their boat sank off the coast of Libya.
The shipwreck that claimed the lives of more than 350 mainly Eritrean asylum seekers off the Italian island of Lampedusa last month has focused Europe’s obsession with irregular migration on the area of the Mediterranean separating southern Italy and Malta from North Africa. But this treacherous stretch of sea represents only the final leg of a lengthy journey filled with hazards.
The scale of this latest tragedy is unprecedented: at least 94 people have died and hundreds are missing after an overcrowded boat carrying some 500 people caught fire and sank off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy, early Thursday morning. Some 140 people have been rescued and the search continues for more survivors even as hope fades.