The Italian coastguard said on Monday it had recovered the bodies of 13 women, some of them pregnant, after a small boat carrying around 50 migrants capsized off Lampedusa.
Around a dozen people, reportedly including eight children and other pregnant women, are still missing after the overloaded boat sank off the coast of the southern Italian island, the coastguard said.
The coastguard and a customs vessel on Monday saved 22 of the people who fell in the water as the rescue ships approached around six nautical miles (around 11 kilometres) from Lampedusa.
They had rushed to the aid of an “overloaded and already listing boat” shortly after midnight on Monday, a statement said.