About thirteen women, some of them pregnant, drowned when a boat crowded with migrants capsized in the Mediterranean, moments before they were due to be rescued.
Italian officials said a dozen other people are still missing. The boat tipped over in bad weather near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The UN says more than one thousand people have died in the Mediterranean so far this year trying to make the perilous journey to Europe.
Italy’s coast guard says it launched a rescue mission late on Sunday after being alerted to an overloaded and badly listing boat about 11 kilometres from Lampedusa.
But as the rescue ships approached shortly after midnight yesterday, adverse weather conditions and the sudden displacement of the migrants caused the boat to capsize.
