Dozens of people have drowned after a boat carrying illegal migrants capsized between Sicily and Tunisia, in the second such shipwreck this month.
The boat was believed to have been carrying some 250 people and overturned in the sea about 100 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that around 50 bodies had been sighted, including some 10 children.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said there were indications at least 27 people had died and the number was expected to rise, "possibly drastically".
The Maltese navy said one of its ships had rescued 150 migrants from Friday's wreck and an Italian navy vessel had saved 56. The most seriously injured were being taken by helicopter to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
The incident occurred just over a week after more than 300 people drowned when a boat carrying Eritrean and Somali migrants sank near Lampedusa.
Italy is asking for more European Union support and an overhaul of the bloc's immigration rules after the 3 October shipwreck.
In the protracted migrant crisis, tens of thousands have arrived in southern Italy in flimsy, overcrowded boats and some vessels have been wrecked. Lampedusa, located midway between Sicily and Tunisia in North Africa, has borne the brunt, Reuters reports.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 32,000 have arrived in southern Italy and Malta this year alone, about two thirds of whom have filed requests for asylum.
Although most migrants come from sub-Saharan Africa, this year many are fleeing the Syrian civil war or political turmoil in Egypt and other parts of North Africa. Many are drawn by hopes of finding work in Europe and often do not stay in Italy.
Earlier on Friday at least 500 more migrants in at least three separate boats arrived or were rescued on the way to different areas of Sicily.
