Many of them are believed to be children and women who were unable to swim away when the boat sank.
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In June, the European agency Frontex border control had said it was anxious about the growing number of migrants trying to reach Europe, usually Italy or Greece, initiating the very unsafe journey from the Egypt. Officials say the search is ongoing as scores of people remain missing.
One hundred and sixty people were rescued, Egyptian officials said.
The boats carrying migrants usually depart from this area with a lot of them bound for the Italian mainland. “The boat tilted to the side then began to sink”, said Ahmed Mohamed, a 27-year-old Egyptian.
A municipal official in Rosetta said the dead included one child, 10 women and 31 young men.
It had waited at sea for many hours – perhaps days – as smaller wooden boats carrying migrants arrived from points along the Egyptian coastline.
More than 300,000 refugees and migrants have reached European shores since January 2016, almost 50 percent fewer entries than were documented previous year over the same period. He said the boat may now have sunk to 16 meters (yards) below sea level.
Many survivors were in police custody.
Survivors said smugglers forced anyone who wanted a lifejacket to pay extra, as a result, 162 have drowned.
But fatality rates had risen, with 2016 on track to be “the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean Sea”, said the UN’s refugee agency.
Egypt has become a more common launching point for illegal immigration through its Mediterranean Sea shores to Europe after Libya and Turkey lost their importance for smugglers in favor of the most populous Arab country, said experts of Egyptian and Middle East affairs.
People-traffickers often use barely seaworthy vessels and overload them to extract the maximum money in fares from desperate refugees.
Thousands of illegal migrants have made the unsafe sea voyage across the Mediterranean in recent years, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.
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Arrivals in Italy this year stood at 130,411, on a par with the 132,000 people who landed over the same period in 2015, said the UNHCR.
