Eleven migrants dead, 50 missing off Sicily coast

At least 11 would-be migrants trying to reach Italy from Africa died when a fishing boat containing some 160 people sank just off the shore of Sicily, southern Italy, police said yesterday.

"Eleven bodies have been recovered, some were on the beach, others were in the sea," an officer of the Carabinieri police told Reuters by telephone. One of the dead was a six-month-old baby. Around 50 more people were feared missing, he added.

The Coastguard said it rescued 74 people from the sinking boat and that 25 others had been found alive.

"They said they were Eritrean but some of them looked north African," said Raffaele Macauda, head of the Coastguard at the port town of Gela. Survivors told Mr Macauda they had been sailing for three days after setting off from Libya. Two of the survivors were arrested on suspicion of being in charge of the boat.