Up to 950 migrants die as boat capsizes

As many as 950 people were feared dead after a fishing boat packed with migrants capsized off the Libyan coast in what may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis, officials said.

Twenty eight people were rescued and 24 bodies recovered from the 20m-long vessel, which sank around 100km from the Libyan coast, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Italian coast guard said.

If confirmed, the death toll would bring the total number of dead since the beginning of the year to more than 1,850 as the flow of migrants seeking to flee poverty, war and insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East continues.