Migrant boat from Libya capsizes off coast of Italy

As many as 400 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are feared dead after a boat carrying them from Libya to Italy capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, in the latest maritime tragedy to strike off the southern coasts of Europe.

According to Flavio di Giacomo, a Rome-based spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, survivors told IOM staff that about 550 people were on the boat and they began to shift positions and become agitated as rescuers appeared on the horizon. But the movement of so many people caused the boat to flip and the migrants to be thrown overboard, Mr di Giacomo said.

Though details on the exact location of the boat when it capsized are still unknown, the tragedy comes amid a spike in the flow of migrants from Libya to Italy, coinciding with calm weather. As many as 10,000 people have been rescued by Italian Naval and Coast Guard vessels since Friday - and transported to ports across Sicily and southern Italy for medical treatment, border control checks, asylum applications, and ultimately placement in welcome centres that are rapidly filling up.

Although the number of migrant arrivals in Italy is still more or less on track to match the pace of 2014, when 26,000 people had made the Mediterranean Sea crossing by the end of April, the estimated number of deaths is much higher than last year.

In the period to the end of March in 2014, about 50 migrants were estimated to have lost their lives during the maritime journey, but in the same period this year that figure rose to 480. And if the death toll of 400 people this week is confirmed, the toll would rise further to 900.

A number of aid agencies working on the ground with refugees attribute the rise in the number of deaths to the end of Mare Nostrum - a wide-ranging search-and-rescue operation run by the Italian Navy in which vessels were deployed up to the edge of Libyan territorial waters to save distressed migrants. But Mare Nostrum, launched in late 2013, was criticised within Italy and by many EU countries for driving more migrants to risk the journey, forcing it to be wound down. A new EU-backed border control mission known as Triton has been operating since November 2014, but its scope is much more narrow and limited to 30 miles off the Italian coastline.

"The Italian coast guard is doing tremendous work, but faced with such a numerous flux of migrants, they won't be able to save everyone. They just don't have the means," says Mr Di Giacomo of the IOM. "There is support from Triton, but it's limited. You need to restore a search-and-rescue mechanism like Mare Nostrum," he adds.

Senior Italian officials have been calling for the EU to take a much greater role in helping it cope with the migrants' crisis, including an increase in funding for Triton, and more active efforts to support peace talks in Libya that would end the civil war in the North African country. But so far they have not had much success.

Still, the matter is rising up the agenda in Brussels. Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU commissioner for migration, home affairs, and citizenship, is due to travel to Sicily next week to visit some welcome centres. "We need to offer solidarity and support member states to fulfil their obligations and protect those in need," he tweeted this week. "We also need to further engage with countries of origin and transit," Mr Avramopoulos added.

But even in Italy, the new rush of migrants was stoking political opposition from rightwing groups. Matteo Salvini, head of the Northern League, which would capture nearly 15 per cent of the vote if an Italian election were held today, according to polls, called for a "physical occupation" of any "hotels, hostels, schools and barracks" used to help the "so-called refugees". "First [these structures] should be used for Italians in trouble," he said.

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