The Italian news agency ANSA said a Maltese aircraft had first sighted the capsized boat about 65 Kilometers (40 miles) off Libya's coast on Saturday afternoon.
The survivors - 62 men and eight women, one of whom was pregnant - were transferred to an Italian Navy ship for medical care. Many of them were suffering from hypothermia.
The Italian coastguard and navy recovered the bodies of 11 Somali nationals about 35 miles (56 km) from the Libyan coast on Saturday and Sunday after the motorised raft they were using to try to get to Italy sank, the coastguard said.
The Italian news agency ANSA said a Maltese aircraft had first sighted the capsized boat about 65 Kilometers (40 miles) off Libya's coast on Saturday afternoon.
The survivors - 62 men and eight women, one of whom was pregnant - were transferred to an Italian Navy ship for medical care. Many of them were suffering from hypothermia.
Two coastguard boats and a navy ship pulled 70 other Somalis from the water, according to a statement sent on Sunday. The survivors and the dead were being taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The coastguard, an Italian tug boat, and a navy helicopter are continuing to search for survivors.
Each year, thousands of people, mostly from Africa, attempt to cross the Mediterranean from north Africa to Europe in overcrowded and frequently unseaworthy vessels.
In September, dozens of people – believed to have been from Tunisia – went missing when the fishing boat carrying them sank near Lampedusa.
At a subsequent meeting of European and north African leaders on Malta last month, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki called for the creation of a regional task force.
Marzouki said coordinated responses must be established to deal with what he called a "humanitarian disaster."
Solutions to the problem, he said, lay in finding solutions to instability, persistent poverty and high youth unemployment in Africa.
Italy's government recently said that between the start of the year and September 8,000 clandestine migrants landed on Italy's coastline.
Italian Interior Minister Maria Cancellieri said cooperation, especially with Tunisia and Libya, had led to a reduction in the numbers reaching Italy since the Arab Spring popular uprisings of 2011.
Thousands of people have been killed attempting the dangerous crossing from North Africa to Europe in overcrowded and frequently unsafe vessels. In the past few years, Italy has become the main destination for maritime migration to southern Europe, which is usually from Libya.
Sunday 4 November 2012
http://www.dw.de/boat-migrants-rescued-off-italy/a-16354433
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