Italy boat sinking: Hundreds feared dead off Lampedusa Published duration 3 October 2013

media caption The BBC's Gavin Hewitt: "The survivors tell a tragic story"

At least 130 African migrants have died and many more are missing after a boat carrying them to Europe sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

A total of 103 bodies have been recovered and more have been found inside the wreck, coast guards say.

Passengers reportedly threw themselves into the sea when a fire broke out on board. More than 150 of the migrants have been rescued.

Most of those on board were from Eritrea and Somalia, said the UN.

The boat was believed to have been carrying up to 500 people at the time and some 200 of them are unaccounted for.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the ship had come from Misrata in Libya and began taking on water when its motor stopped working.

It is thought that some of those on board set fire to a piece of material to try to attract the attention of passing ships, only to have the fire spread to the rest of the boat.

Simona Moscarelli, a spokeswoman from the International Organization for Migration in Rome, told the BBC that in order to escape the fire, "the migrants moved, all of them, to one side of the boat which capsized".

She estimated that only six of about 100 women on board survived, adding that most of the migrants were unable to swim.

"Only the strongest survived," she said.

It is one of the worst such disasters to occur off the Italian coast in recent years; Prime Minister Enrico Letta tweeted that it was "an immense tragedy". The government has declared a day of national mourning on Friday.

"There is no miraculous solution to the migrant exodus issue," said Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino. "If there were we would have found it and put it into action."

In a separate incident on Thursday, local media reported that around 200 migrants were escorted to the port of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, when their vessel encountered difficulties five miles off the coast.

Earlier this week, 13 migrants drowned while trying to reach Sicily.

'Continuous horror'

Footage from Lampedusa showed bodies being laid out on the dockside.

The mayor, Giusi Nicolini, described the scene as a "continuous horror".

"It's horrific, like a cemetery, they are still bringing them out," she said, according to Reuters.

image caption More than 140 people have been rescued from the shipwreck, officials say

image caption The vessel reportedly capsized after a fire on board

image caption There are believed to have been around 500 people on board the vessel

image caption The bodies of the victims were lined up at Lampedusa dockside

The boat went down a few hundred metres from the shore of the island and divers said they found 40 bodies in and around the sunken boat on the sea bed.

Mr Alfano said at least three children and two pregnant women were among the dead. Local media reported that a suspected people smuggler had been arrested.

One Eritrean woman who had been placed among the bodies recovered from the sea was later found to be breathing, Italian media said. She was taken to hospital in Sicily.

Pope Francis sent a Twitter message calling for prayers for the "victims of the tragic shipwreck off Lampedusa". In July he visited the island and condemned the "global indifference" to the plight of migrants trying to arrive there.

In a later audience at the Vatican, he said: "The word is disgrace: This is disgrace!"

In a statement UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres commended the swift action taken by the Italian coast guard to save lives.

Mr Guterres also expressed "dismay at the rising global phenomenon of migrants and people fleeing conflict or persecution and perishing at sea".

At this time of year, when the Mediterranean tends to be calmer, vessels carrying migrants from Africa and the Middle East land on Italy's southern shores almost every day, the BBC's Alan Johnston reports from Rome.

media caption Lampedusa mayor Giusi Nicolini: "These bodies are all speaking. We need to stop this"

But often the vessels are overcrowded and are not seaworthy.

The UN said that in recent months most migrants attempting the crossing were fleeing the conflicts in Syria and the Horn of Africa, rather than coming from sub-Saharan Africa.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that more than 1,500 people drowned or went missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe in 2011, making it the "most deadly stretch of water for refugees and migrants".

The UN also said that almost 500 people were reported dead or missing at sea during 2012 in attempts to reach Europe.

The number of those arriving by sea to Italy this year until 30 September stood at 30,100, according to the UN.

media caption "A disgrace": Pope on boat tragedy

The main nationalities of those arriving were Syrian (7,500), Eritrean (7,500) and Somali (3,000).

On Wednesday a draft report from human rights body the Council of Europe said that Italy was "ill-prepared for a new surge of mixed migration on its coasts".