An Italian coast Guard vessel during ongoing search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Photo / video still / AP
An Italian coast Guard vessel during ongoing search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Photo / video still / AP
As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized in the Mediterranean sea overnight.
So far 24 bodies have been recovered from the sea and 28 people have been rescued following the incident, which took place off Libyan waters, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, just after midnight on Sunday (local time).
An Italian coast Guard vessel and helicopter during ongoing search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Photo / video still / AP
The 66-foot fishing boat went down after passengers moved to one side of the vessel to signal to a passing Portuguese merchant ship, and it overturned.
One survivor told rescuers there was 700 people on board, but the Coast Guard said there was no immediate way of finding out exactly how many passengers were on the boat or how many might still be rescued. Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says officials are "not in a position to confirm or verify" that the boat had 700 people aboard.
Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers.
Prosecutor Giovanni Salvi said the survivor described the situation on the fishing boat to prosecutors who interviewed him in a hospital. The man said about 300 people were in the hold when the fishing boat overturned, and that about 200 women and dozens of children also were on board.
Mr Salvi stressed that there was no confirmation yet of the man's account and that the investigation was ongoing.
The shipwreck may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis, and follows the feared drowning of more than 400 in two separate incidents on the sea earlier this week.
A rescue operation coordinated by the Italian coast guard involving 18 ships is still underway in the hopes of rescuing more people from the midnight sinking off the Libyan coast, 120 miles (193km) south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Wreckage of the boat - which is was sailing towards Malta - was spotted in the sea, including life jackets. large fuel stains and pieces of wood.
"They are literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water," a coast guard spokesperson said.
The total number of passengers was expected to be clarified as authorities interview survivors.
Given that the sea is as deep as 3 miles (5km) or more in the area, it is possible that many bodies will never be recovered, as was the case in similar tragedies off the coasts of Libya, Italy, and other Mediterranean nations in recent years.
Italian PM: 'Systematic slaughter in the Mediterranean'
Senior political figures across Europe are now calling for action to combat the increasingly deadly migrant crisis in the Mediterranean sea.
Mr Renzi, Italy's prime minister, said Europe was witnessing "systematic slaughter in the Mediterranean".
"How can we remain insensible when we're witnessing entire populations dying at a time when modern means of communications allow us to be aware of everything?" Mr Renzi said at a political event in Mantua.
Migrants receive relief after disembarking in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Photo / AP
Leader of Italy's anti-immigration Northern League party Matteo Salvini called for boats to be blocked from departing from Libya: "This is the umpteenth tragedy. Nothing has changed since the disaster of Lampedusa. Do we need another 700 people to die before we block the crossings?"
"Genuine refugees should be brought to the EU countries that can host them by plane. We must go there and help the desperate ones who are fleeing wars, on the ground, in Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and bring them to the 29 countries of the EU by plane. If we block the departures we prevent the deaths."
Mr Renzi told reporters Sunday night that he ruled out any naval blockade off Libya's coast, saying that would only "wind up helping the smugglers" since military ships would be there to rescue any migrants. He also said migrants can't be forced back to Libya, because of the violent chaos there.
Pope Francis held a moment of prayer for the victims. He said: "A boat packed with migrants capsized 70 miles off the coast of Libya. They fear hundreds of victims.
"I express my deepest pain in the face of the tragedy. I appeal to the international community to act quickly and decisively to avoid repeating similar tragedies. They are men and women like us, our brothers who search for a better life, persecuted, injured, exploited, victims of war, searching for a better life, searching for happiness."
"A tragedy is unfolding in the Mediterranean, and if the EU and the world continue to close their eyes, it will be judged in the harshest terms as it was judged in the past when it closed its eyes to genocides when the comfortable did nothing," Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
Britain's Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said he will bring up the issue of migrant trafficking at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Monday.
Mr Hammond said he discussed ideas to combat migrant trafficking with Group of Seven foreign ministers last week, and he plans to do so again with EU counterparts in Luxembourg on Monday.
The head of the United Nations' refugee agency said the latest deaths of migrants at sea in the Mediterranean show the need for stronger rescue capabilities.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement Sunday that the capsizing of the overloaded boat "confirms how urgent it is to restore a robust rescue-at-sea operation". He says that "otherwise people seeking safety will continue to perish at sea".
Mr Guterres said the agency has urged the European Union for an "urgent response" and to deploy stronger search and rescue forces, and to increase legal avenues for safe migration.
Last year, he said 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean by sea and 3500 died. This year, 35,000 asylum seekers and migrants have reached Europe so far.
