DHAKA: The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it had received a distress call from a sinking boat in the Mediterranean Sea carrying more than 300 people, with at least 20 reported dead.

The news came as European Union ministers were due to meet to urgently discuss Sunday's migrant tragedy, when about 700 people were feared killed after a boat capsized off Libya.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman on Monday said the group had received a call for help from one of three boats floating near one another in international waters, The Straits Times publishes this report on Tuesday.

‘The caller said there are over 300 people on his boat and it is already sinking, (and) he has already reported fatalities, 20 at least,’ he wrote in an e-mail.

Although the IOM said Italian and Maltese navy boats were tied up searching for the victims of Sunday’s disaster, Italian premier Matteo Renzi said later in the day that Italy and Malta were working to rescue two boats in distress.

He said one of the boats in distress has about 100 to 150 people on board, while the other has around 300. There was no mention of the third boat.

The latest news of migrant boats in distress follows a week in which two shipwrecks have left around 450 people dead, sparking calls for immediate action.

At a press conference with his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat yesterday, Renzi said Italy was studying the possibility of mounting ‘targeted interventions’ against Libya-based people smugglers behind a huge surge in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

‘The hypothesis of military intervention (to stabilize Libya) is not on the table... but what is possible are targeted interventions to destroy a criminal racket.’

Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German chancellor Angela Merkel, told reporters that she was appalled by Sunday’s shipwreck disaster and wants Europe to find answers.

BDST: 1202 HRS, APR 21, 2015
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