The shipwrecks appear to account for the largest loss of life reported in the Mediterranean since April 2015, when a single ship sank with an estimated 800 people trapped inside. Humanitarian organizations say that many migrant boats sink without a trace, with the dead never found, and their fates only recounted by family members who report their failure to arrive in Europe.
"It really looks like that in the last period the situation is really worsening in the last week, if the news is confirmed," said Giovanna Di Benedetto, a Save the Children spokeswoman in Italy.
The largest number of missing and presumed dead was aboard a wooden fishing boat being towed by another smugglers' boat from the Libyan port of Sabratha that sank Thursday. Estimates by police and humanitarian organizations, based on survivor accounts, range from around 400 to about 550 missing in that sinking alone.
One survivor from Eritrea, 21-year-old Filmon Selomon, told The Associated Press that water started seeping into the second boat after three hours of navigation, and that the migrants tried vainly to get the water out of the sinking boat.
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A 17-year-old Eritrean, Mohammed Ali Imam, who arrived five days ago in another rescue, said one of the survivors told him that the second boat started taking on water when the first boat ran out of fuel.
Police said the line, which was ordered cut by the commander when it was at full tension, whipped back, fatally slashing the neck of a female migrant.
Italian police said survivors identified the commander of the boat with the working engine as a 28-year-old Sudanese man, who has been arrested and faces possible charges for the deaths. Three other smugglers involved in other crossings also were arrested, police announced.