Over 130 people drowned today after a boat carrying up to 500 African asylum seekers caught fire and sank off Italian shores in one of the worst such disasters in the Mediterranean.
"There are 93 victims, including three children and two pregnant women," said Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who flew to the remote island of Lampedusa near where the tragedy happened.
Rescue divers later said they had identified at least 40 more bodies in and around the sunken wreck at a depth of around 40 metres, just a few hundred metres from the shore.
One woman initially thought dead and brought back to the port was revived by medical personnel on the dock. There were fears that the final toll could rise further to 300 or more people since rescuers said that only 151 survivors had been plucked from the water more than 11 hours after the disaster.
"Seeing the bodies of the children was a tragedy. We have run out of coffins," said Pietro Bartolo, a doctor. "In many years of work here, I have never seen anything like this," he said.
Lampedusa is one of the main entry points into the European Union for asylum-seekers crossing from Africa or the eastern Mediterranean.
The UN estimates some 20,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach Europe since the late 1990s, crossing on rickety fishing boats or dinghies.
Survivors said they were from Eritrea and Somalia and had left from the Libyan port of Misrata.
"We received the first alert at 7:00 am (1030 IST) when a boat reported people in the water," a spokesman for the coast guard told AFP.
Antonio Candela, a local emergency medical worker, said: "The first assistance was provided by people on pleasure boats who heard the screams."
The migrants told rescuers they set fire to a blanket on the boat to attract the attention of coast guards after their vessel began taking on water and passing fishing boats ignored them. The fire spread quickly, sowing panic on board which caused the boat to flip over and sink, as desperate passengers jumped into the water.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the incident "an immense tragedy" and the government has declared a national day of mourning tomorrow. Alfano called for more assistance from the European Union to deal with the sharp increase in refugee arrivals, calling it "a European tragedy".
Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July to plead for more attention to the plight of refugees, called the disaster "shameful". He added: "Let us join forces so these tragedies never happen again. Only decisive cooperation can help prevent them.
