File picture: A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea on April 18, 2015.(Photo: Giovanni Isolino, AFP/Getty Images)
Hundreds of migrants are feared dead after a boat carrying up to 700 people capsized in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Italian Coastguard
told the BBC that the vessel was carrying between 500 and 700 people when the incident happened around midnight local time Sunday.
Only 28 people have been rescued so far, the broadcaster reported. The incident happened off Libyan waters, 120 miles south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to the
Times of Malta.
The newspaper reported that the boat capsized when the people aboard are believed to have moved to one side of the vessel when a merchant ship approached.
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Italian vessels, the Maltese Navy and commercial ships are taking part in the rescue operation, the BBC reported.
Barbara Molinario, spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency, said the number of victims is not known, the Associated Press reported.
Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Italian news channel SkyTG24: "At the moment, we fear that this is a tragedy of really vast proportions," Reuters reported.
Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said if the deaths are confirmed, it would be the biggest such tragedy to take place in the Mediterranean, the
Times of Malta reported. "They are literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water," he added, according to the paper.
Last week, 400 migrants were presumed dead after a double-deck boat capsized Monday about 75 miles south of Lampedusa in one of the deadliest crossing attempts in the past decade.
Thursday, 41 migrants were feared drowned in the Mediterranean and, in a separate incident, Italian police arrested 15 Muslim migrants who survivors said tossed 12 Christians from a boat during a recent attempt to cross the sea.
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International U.K., said in a statement: "Yet again we have woken up to reports of another tragedy in the Mediterranean, which could bring the total number of migrants who've drowned just this year to a shocking 1,500.
"This is a Europe-wide crisis that needs a Europe-wide response. How many more will have to drown before EU governments, including the U.K., wake up to their responsibilities to save lives?"
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Since April 10, more than 8,500 people migrants have been rescued from several dozen boats and rubber dinghies in the Mediterranean, according to the Italian Coast Guard, the UNHCR reported.
Since the beginning of this year, some 31,500 people are known to have made the crossing to Italy and Greece — the two largest countries receiving refugees.
The EU took over Mediterranean patrols after Italy phased out its so-called Mare Nostrum ("Our Sea") operation in November. Mare Nostrum was launched in 2013 after 360 migrants died off the coast of Lampedusa.
The EU's Triton mission patrol operates only a few miles off Italy's coast, while Mare Nostrum patrols took Italian rescue ships up close to Libya's coast, where most of the smuggling operations originate.
At least 3,500 of the 219,000 refugees and migrants — many fleeing conflicts in Africa,Syria and Iraq — who tried to cross the Mediterranean through irregular routes last year died, UNHCR reported.
Contributing: Katharine Lackey
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Nearly 1,000 migrants rescued off Italy; 10 die
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