At least 17 migrants are considered dead or missing following a shipwreck off Libya last night. 

A three-year-old from Nigeria is among those missing, according to the 113 survivors rescued from a rubber boat and aboard the Malta-based MOAS rescue vessel Phoenix. 

“I was on the rubber boat with my son, he was crying and holding on to me. The sea was rough and the boat was taking on water. At one point some people started to panic. The next thing I knew I was pushed into the water and I lost my son in the chaos as I was trying to grab a life jacket,” the child's mother recounted to the crew aboard the rescue vessel.

Among the other survivors is a young man who said he had boarded the migrant vessel with five friends, none of whom were found, while another man told the crew he saw a young girl of around 16 years drown before the rescue crews made it on the scene. At the time of rescue, many people had already been in the water for several hours.

Many people now on board the Phoenix are suffering from burns on various parts of their bodies, cause by the fuel leaked from the engine. One of the women on board is in a state of shock with 36 per cent of her body covered in first degree burns.

The Phoenix crew was alerted of the vessel in distress following a call received at 7pm from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome. In cooperation with the other search-and-rescue NGOs in the area, a rescue operation was swiftly launched.

The survivors said they had departed from Sabrata in Libya at around 2pm yesterday afternoon. 

"It is not migration that is killing people, it is the indifference of governments and the international community at large,” said the national president of the Italian Red Cross, Francesco Rocca.

Pete Sweetnam, director of MOAS, added: "Our crews are tired of witnessing yet again people dying needlessly on what continues to be the most dangerous migrant route in the world."

The rescue vessel is on its way to Messina with 175 migrants on board who were rescued early in the week.