Up to 250 African migrants feared drowned after boat sinks off Italy
Fifty rescued after overladen vessel capsizes en route from Libya
A woman rescued from the capsized boat is taken to an Italian hospital. Hopes are fading for those still missing. Photograph: Giorgos Moutafis/AP
Desperate refugees dragged each other underwater and drowned as anoverladen migrant boat sank off the coast of Sicily, a senior aid worker has said.
Up to 250 people, mainly from Africa, are missing after the boat, believed to have left Libya on Monday, sank in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said the boat experienced difficulties and capsized soon after Italian coastguard vessels arrived. "The sea was rough and after people went to one side it began taking in water and sank quickly," he said. "People drowned immediately and some non-swimmers clung to those who could swim, taking them down. It is a real horror story."
Italian rescue workers have resumed their search for survivors but hopes of finding anyone alive are fading.
Many smaller boats carrying migrants have sunk while attempting to reach southern Europe from Africa, killing unknown numbers of refugees and migrants.
Speaking in parliament, the Italian interior minister, Roberto Maroni, said 51 people, most of them from central Africa, had been picked up by rescue vessels responding to a distress signal sent via Maltese authorities. The boat was in Maltese waters when it got into difficulties, but Italian rescue ships were alerted because of a lack of appropriate vessels in Malta. "The search is continuing but hopes of finding anyone still alive grow weaker by the hour," he said.
Survivors are being housed in a reception centre in Lampedusa, the southern Italian island at the centre of a recent north African migrant influx. There is uncertainty about the number of people on the boat when it sank. The IOM said those rescued had told them there were some 300 on board; Maroni said Italian officials had been told there were about 200.
Chauzy said two women among about 40 on board survived the ordeal, including an expectant mother who has been taken to hospital in Palermo. About 20 bodies had been recovered and although the search was continuing, no survivors were likely to be found after more than 30 hours.
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