Rescuers search for missing migrants after boat capsizes near Italy

2013-10-03 44

One by one, the body count is rising.

Coast Guard officials in Italy say a boat carrying hundreds of African migrants capsized, leaving scores dead or missing.

In video released by the Coast Guard, dozens of survivors huddle along the boat's side as rescuers search the waters off the coast of Lampedusa, east of Tunisia.

Officials say about 150 migrants had been rescued.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said it believed there were around 500 passengers, all Eritreans who had boarded in Libya.

The accident comes just days after another boat sank off Sicily's coast, leaving 13 migrants dead.