Austria said 71 refugees including a baby girl were found dead in an abandoned freezer truck, while Libya recovered the bodies of 82 migrants washed ashore after their overcrowded boat sank on its way to Europe and scores more were feared dead.

Austrian police have discovered the badly-decomposing bodies of at least 20, and possibly up to 50, migrants piled in a truck parked on the shoulder of the main motorway from Budapest to Vienna.

Hundreds of migrants are feared drowned after a fishing boat said to be carrying as many as 700 people capsized in the Mediterranean yesterday.