Rescuers had yesterday searched for around 50 missing migrants feared drowned after their boat sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa overnight, Italian rescue services said.

The coastguard called on private vessels and teams from local deep-sea diving centres to join the search.

The Italian coastguard and nearby NATO ships plucked 56 people from the sea after receiving a distress call from the sinking boat, which survivors said had been carrying 136 migrants including 10 women and six children.

Coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini confirmed one body had been found and said the search would continue “as long as there is hope of finding survivors’’.

Those rescued “are in good health although they are suffering from hypothermia,” after spending hours in the water, Marini said. Some were plucked from the waters off the islet of Lampione, while others had made it ashore.

The survivors, apparently all Tunisians, were taken to a nearby reception centre on the island of Lampedusa, off Italy’s southernmost tip.

A passenger on the boat gave the alarm in a satellite phone call last night, saying they were sinking about about 12 nautical miles off Lampedusa, the Italian island closest to the coast of north Africa.

The first people were pulled from the sea around 2:30 am while some managed to swim to the small islet. Two were rescued by a German NATO ship while one exhausted migrant was flown to land by helicopter.

So far, however there has been no sign of the wrecked boat. Some Italian media reports have even speculated as to whether it had quickly sunk or may have been towed back to Tunisia by a “mother boat,” which could have taken the remaining migrants with it.

Prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily, have opened an inquiry into whether there were people traffickers on board, and whether they were among the survivors.

But UN refugee agency spokeswoman Laura Boldrini said: “The idea of people smugglers is by now obsolete.

“Today it is the migrants themselves who take turns in sailing the boat. They are often people with no maritime experience.”

Save the Children Italy said five children had survived. It called on “national and international authorities to make every effort to reinforce and multiply prevention initiatives” to stop migrants attempting the crossing.

Amnesty International also expressed its concern.

“Once again, the waters around the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa have played host to a tragedy, highlighting that the number of people dying on Europe’s doorstep is still increasing,” it said.

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