At least two people have died and more than 30 are missing after two ships carrying migrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the UN’s migration agency said on Sunday.
The two boats had set off from the port of Sfax in Tunisia carrying 48 and 42 people respectively.
Italian coastguards recovered the bodies of a woman from the Ivory Coast and her one-year-old baby.
Italian authorities said they were investigating the shipwrecks.
Coastguards rescued 57 migrants when the vessels sank on Saturday, about 23 nautical miles (46 km) south-west of Lampedusa.
The tragedy follows June’s Greek boat disaster which left at least 78 dead and hundreds missing.
On Sunday, firefighters and mountain rescue teams were preparing to rescue 20 migrants trapped on a rocky part of Lampedusa’s coastline.
The migrants have been there since late Friday after strong winds pushed the boats against the rocks.
After more than two days of sailing in bad weather, NGO Open Arms said it had started disembarking 195 rescued migrants in the southern Italian port of Brindisi.
Police chief Emanuele Ricifari, who is in charge of the investigation, told local media the traffickers would have known that rough seas were forecast.
“Whoever allowed them, or forced them, to leave with this sea is an unscrupulous criminal lunatic,” Mr Ricifari said. —BBC
