As many as 700 people are feared to have drowned after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast on Saturday night, in what is believed to be one of the deadliest incidents in a migration crisis that has already claimed thousands of lives.
Officers check monitors showing the ships navigating the area where the boat believed to be crowded with perhaps as many as 700 migrants capsized (AP)
Twenty eight people were rescued in the incident, which happened just off Libyan waters, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, an Italian coast guard official said.
Malta's prime minister, Joseph Muscat, said: "They are literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water.
"This could possibly be the biggest tragedy to have ever taken place in the Mediterranean. Children, men, and women have died."
Mr Muscat said the tragedy was further evidence that Italy and Malta needed more support from their European partners in dealing with the migrant crisis.
"Although we are seeing encouraging signs from European politicians, action must be taken," he said.
"There is a tragedy going on in the Mediterranean. A time will come when Europe will be judged harshly for its inaction as it was judged when it had turned a blind eye to genocide."
An image released by the Italian Coastguard shows a lifebuoy and people in the sea (Guardia Costiera)
Rescue workers said around 50 people had been found alive, but that many more bodies were still floating in the ocean.
"At the moment, we fear that this is a tragedy of really vast proportions," Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told SkyTG24 television.
The 28 were rescued by a Portuguese container ship King Jacob that had been en route to Libya. Maritime sources said the Italian coast guard directed the Portuguese vessel to help the fishing boat after a distress signal was received, and that the boat may have capsized when the migrants saw the King Jacob and rushed to one side of the vessel, causing it to overturn.
It was unclear whether survivors would be taken to the nearest port, La Valletta in Malta, or to a port in southeast Sicily. Migrants reception centres in Sicily are already over capacity.
The search operation was due to continue at least to Sunday evening, the coast guard said, adding that with sea temperatures of 17 celsius migrants could remain alive in the water for some time.
The tragedy happened just off Libyan waters, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa
And if the death toll from Saturday’s disaster is confirmed, it will push up the number of deaths in the Mediterranean to around 1,400, making 2015 the worst year on record during the decades-long migrant crisis in the southern Mediterranean, as people flee war, poverty and repression in the Middle East and Africa.
A helicopter and a ship take part in a rescue operation off the coast of Sicily following the shipwreck (Guardia Costiera/AFP/Getty)
Last Wednesday, another overcrowded migrant boat sank between Libya and Italy, causing up to 400 deaths.
The European Union announced an emergency meeting of foreign and interior ministers, but gave no date for the gathering.
The leaders of France, Spain and Italy added their voices to calls for an urgent meeting.
Pope Francis said: "There are fears there could be hundreds of dead," then he bowed his head in silent prayer (AP)
Pope Francis on Sunday appealed to the international community to take swift and decisive action to avoid more tragedies.
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"They are men and women like us, our brothers seeking a better life, starving, persecuted, wounded, exploited, victims of war. They were looking for a better life," he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.
An officer looks at a monitor in the operation room of the Coast Guard during the coordination of rescue efforts, in Rome (AP)
"Faced with such a tragedy, I express my most heartfelt pain and promise to remember the victims and their families in prayer," he said, departing from his prepared text. "I make a heartfelt appeal to the international community to react decisively and quickly to see to it that such tragedies are not repeated."
The Italian official confirmed that navy vessels were involved in the operation, which was being coordinated by the Italian coast guard in Rome. But he said details were still being evaluated.
The boat is believed to have capsized when migrants moved to one side of the overcrowded vessel when a merchant ship approached.
The boats carrying the migrants are usually dangerously overcrowded
The latest disaster is likely to strengthen calls for the EU to restart comprehensive search and rescue operations. Last October, Italy cancelled Operation Mare Nostum, a rescue mission that saved up to 100,000 lives last year. In its place the EU runs a smaller border patrol service, Operation Triton.
• The Med is now the most dangerous border in the world
Save the Children's Justin Forsyth said: “EU leaders must hold an emergency meeting in person or by phone within 48 hours to expedite this process and agree an immediate plan to stop these drownings. Europe cannot look the other way while thousands die off our shores.”
The lawless state of Libya following the toppling of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 has left criminal gangs of migrant smugglers a free hand to send a stream of boats carrying desperate migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
Around 20,000 migrants have reached the Italian coast this year, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates. That is fewer than in the first four months of last year but the number of deaths has risen almost ninefold.
The five worst incidents of recent years:
April 19, 2015: An estimated 700 people are feared dead after a crammed fishing boat capsizes in Libyan waters. Only 28 people survive.
April 12, 2015: Up to 400 migrants drown after their vessel capsizes off the Libyan coast. Rescuers save 145 passengers.
February 2015: More than 330 die after being ordered by traffickers to embark from Libya on overcrowded rubber dinghies in atrocious weather. Some 30 rescued alive die of exposure before the Italian coastguard can get them to hospital.
September 2014: An estimated 500 migrants drown off Malta after people smugglers ram their boat in an attempt to force them onto a smaller vessel. The deadliest incident of its kind prior to Sunday’s tragedy.
Oct 2013: At least 366 people die when a ship carrying 500 migrants begins to sink and then catches fire just off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Many of the victims are trapped in the hold and asphyxiate. The horrific tragedy puts the issue on front pages around the world and prompts a visit by Pope Francis.
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