Twelve migrants died yesterday when their overcrowded rubber dinghy sank off the coast of Libya, the Italian Coast Guard said, adding that some 823 were rescued in the latest episodes in the Mediterranean migrant crisis.

The corpses of the victims were found in the sea by the Coast Guard ship Dattilo some 40 miles north of Libya, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

The Dattilo saved 106 people from the same dinghy, which was "half submerged" when help arrived.

The ship is still involved in other rescue operations involving boats in difficulty, the spokesman said.

No details were available on the nationalities of the victims or those rescued.

Tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war and hunger in Africa and the Middle East have crossed the Mediterranean to Italy and Greece this year, with the vast majority departing from the coast of Libya. Around 2,000 are estimated to have drowned.