An Icelandic Coast Guard ship was today towing a cargo vessel to Italy with about 450 migrants who were abandoned by smugglers, leaving the vessel navigating without a crew, authorities said.

One person has died while attempting to escape from a blazing ferry stranded in the Adriatic Sea, and another was injured, an Italian Coast Guard official says.

A ferry carrying about 470 people caught fire off the Greek island of Corfu, trapping passengers on the top decks as gale-force winds and choppy seas hampered the evacuation.

Hundreds of people were still on the sinking Costa Concordia liner when the captain fled the ship in a lifeboat, a court has been told.

A ship brought 143 survivors, mostly Syrians, from a capsized smugglers’ boat to Malta today.

A disabled cruise ship will spend an extra 10 to 12 hours at sea without electricity, air conditioning or toilet facilities because of a row over tugs, a Seychelles minister says.

Fire has broken out on an Italian cruise ship off the Seychelles islands and the vessel is adrift, but all passengers are safe, Coast Guards said today.

Divers have found a woman's body in a submerged section of the grounded Costa Concordia, raising the death toll in the cruise liner tragedy to at least 12.

A lawyer says the captain who allegedly abandoned the crippled Costa Concordia cruise liner will be released from jail and placed under house arrest.

The captain of the crippled Italian cruise ship’s decision to flee as it was sinking and refusal to return and control the chaotic situation has been exposed in an audio tape.

Divers have found two more bodies aboard the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship, the Italian Coast Guard said today.

Twenty-five would-be migrants have been found dead in the hold of a boat crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa to the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the Italian Coast Guard said today.

Italian coastguards were trying to rescue migrants lost at sea today after their boat capsized off the coast of Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island close to North Africa, officials said, but many were feared dead.

PREMIER Silvio Berlusconi has promised to evacuate the thousands of North African migrants who have overwhelmed the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, earning cheers from residents exasperated by the arrivals.

An aid ship that has been wandering the Mediterranean for three weeks with African asylum seekers aboard, was granted permission to dock in Sicily today.

A speedboat transporting Albanians trying to get to Italy has sunk, killing 21, officials said today.