In the latest tragedy to strike the Mediterranean, some 700 migrants are feared dead after their boat sank off the Libyan coast overnight, Reuters reports.
Only twenty eight people were rescued from the shipwreck, which occured just off Libyan waters at midnight, 120 miles south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to Reuters, the boat is believed to have capsized when migrants shifted to one side of the vessel when a merchant ship approached.
In another recent rescue operation, the Italian coastguard rescued 145 migrants fleeing Libya, with 400 presumed dead.
There has been a surge of migrants fleeing conflict in Libya by sea in the last two weeks, with over 11,000 people rescued by Italian authorities.
