Sixty-three migrants are missing after an inflatable boat sank off Libya, a Libyan Navy spokesman told AFP today, citing testimonies from people who had been rescued.
According to Admiral Ayub Kasem, 41 migrants wearing life jackets were rescued.
According to survivors, the boat, carrying 104 people, sank off the town of Garabouli, about 50km east of Tripoli.
In addition to the 41 rescued, a Libyan Coast Guard ship transported another 235 migrants to Tripoli on Monday, including 54 children and 29 women, who were rescued in two previous operations in the same area.
The boat arrived in Tripoli with a delay of almost 24 hours due to a failure, Kassem explained.
The new shipwreck increases to at least 170 the number of migrants declared missing in the Mediterranean since Friday.
The bodies of three babies were recovered on Friday, while about 100 people were declared missing after the sinking of the boat on which they had boarded.
Sixteen migrants were rescued, all young men.
Libya is a destination or transit country for Europe for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa and the Middle East.
Hundreds of people die every year trying to sail across the central Mediterranean and reach Italy off the coast of Libya, where they operate networks of traffickers who exploit the country's ongoing political instability.