The capsized boat flipped over on Wednesday as an Irish rescue vessel approached, probably because desperate passengers surged to one side as they spotted the ship, LE Niamh, on its way to help them.
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The operation, which included vessels from the Italian and Irish navies and the humanitarian group Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) was continuing.
In addition to Dignity I, two of the charity’s other search and rescue vessels in the Mediterranean – the MY Phoenix, which is operated with support from Moas, and the Bourbon Argos were also sent to the disaster site.
Rai said a major rescue operation was underway with several rafts and buoys thrown in the water as many migrants fleeing North African poverty and unrest-stricken nations are unable to swim.
The Le Niamh arrived near the fishing boat, Marini said, and “at the sight of it, the migrants shifted” to one side and their boat capsized.
He said he was disappointed that EU ministers had failed late last month to agree on how to distribute a total of 40,000 mostly Syrian and Eritrean migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece.
Irish Defense Minister Simon Coveney said the 25 bodies recovered were also on board.
The boat, believed to have been carrying over 600 migrants including women and children, ran into difficulty about 15 nautical miles off Libya and sent out a distress call, which was picked up by the coastguard in Sicily.
Only days ago the IOM warned the death toll of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean this year had reached 2,000 compared with 3,279 for the whole of 2014.
The moment when the boat overturned and the migrants were tipped into the sea “was like being flung from a catapult”, Mohamed, a Palestinian farmer, told MSF in a story recounted in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
In April, a fishing boat with up to 800 migrants sank, making it the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean for decades and a symbol of Europe’s long-running migrant crisis.
The engine room of the boat was said to be flooded, hence the drowning.
“The boats are overcrowded and unstable by definition”.
The global Organisation for Migration (IOM) said that it was receiving reports that there were a “significant number” of casualties. They include those of four children.
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Di Giacomo said deadly accidents were less likely to occur if those racing to rescue migrants were part of Triton, the European Borders Agency Frontex’s patrol and rescue mission in the Mediterranean, because they are trained in dealing with such situations.
