At least 26 African immigrants died trying to reach Italy in a rickety wooden boat, police said on Sunday, citing accounts from some of the survivors rescued by a merchant ship off the Sicilian coast.
A Gibraltan merchant ship plucked 75 African immigrants to safety on Sunday who had been drifting in a 14-metre (45 ft) boat 75 miles off the Italian coast with little food and water.
The migrants said about 100 people had been in the boat when it left the coast of Libya nine days ago but a quarter of those died on the way and the survivors threw their bodies over board, police officials said.
"My son didn't make it, I had to abandon him in the sea," one of the survivors said, ANSA news agency reported.