About 146 migrants are feared missing after their boat capsized after leaving Libya, according to a Gambian man who was rescued following the disaster, the United Nations' refugee agency said Wednesday.
The man was rescued by a Spanish military ship participating in the EU's "Operation Sophia" to crack down on smugglers, and then brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The vessel left on Sunday or Monday from Sabratha, northwestern Libya, with five children and several pregnant women among those on board, the Gambian told a member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who met him at a hospital in Lampedusa.
Most of the passengers were from Nigeria, Mali and The Gambia, he said.
He said that the boat began taking on water a few hours after setting off, and that he survived by holding on to a fuel can. According to information gathered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the man was spotted almost by accident by the Spanish ship, which then transferred him to the Italian coastguard.
"It shows that there may very well be shipwrecks we don't know about, because the boats sink without a trace," Flavio de Giacomo, an IOM spokesman, told AFP.
Since the beginning of this year, at least 590 migrants have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, excluding this latest capsizing, the IOM estimates.
Last week, the Spanish group Pro-Activa Open Arms discovered two empty and partially capsized dinghies, raising fears that hundreds of migrants could be missing, since smugglers often pack 120 to 140 people on such vessels, and often many more.
But these incidents are not included in the IOM's estimates, in particular as one of the vessels may have been one that capsized in Libyan waters shortly before then, in which 54 people were rescued but 66 were missing. The dangers have not slowed the surge in arrivals this year, however: The Italian coastguard says it orchestrated the rescue of more than 1,100 migrants off Libya between Tuesday and Wednesday morning.