Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean on Sunday after the boat in which they were travelling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy's coastguard said.
"We have always argued that it's necessary to stop the departures of unseaworthy vessels," he told Il Messaggero daily on Monday.
Rescue operations were ongoing late on Sunday, supported by merchant ships and aerial support by the EU's border agency Frontex, while two further merchant vessels were en route to the area, the coastguard said in a statement.Earlier on Sunday, the Mediterranea Saving Humans charity had tweeted that according to several sources, the vessel, travelling in the direction of Italy, had capsized about 110 miles northwest of Benghazi.
Rome then requested merchant ships in the area to join the rescue efforts. However, the migrant vessel capsized during an attempt to transfer the people on to the "FROLAND" merchant ship on Sunday morning, it said.
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