Migrants are escorted by policemen after they disembarked from a ship of the Italian coast guards on March 4, 2015 in the port of Augusta, Sicily, following a rescue operation off the coast of Sicily (AFP)
A boat capsized off Sicily when the migrants aboard rushed to meet rescuers, killing at least 10 people, the Italian coastguard said Wednesday.
"The migrants, as they frequently do, all rushed to one side of the boat which then capsized," Italian coast guard spokesman Filippo Marini told TV station SkyTG24, adding that many of the passengers did not know how to swim.
Hundreds of people have died in recent months as waves of migrants from North Africa and Middle East conflict zones attempt to reach Europe, prompting criticism of rescue efforts.
The accident happened after a tugboat for Libyan oil platforms alerted authorities to the boat and an Italian coastguard vessel -- already transporting 318 migrants who had been rescued earlier -- headed to the scene.
One hundred and twenty-one people were rescued after the boat sank on Tuesday, including 27 children and 51 women.
The group of migrants, primarily from Syria, Mali, Nigeria and The Gambia, were taken to Porto Empedocle in Sicily.
The Italian coastguard said it had conducted seven rescue operations in less than 24 hours, saving 941 migrants in the Strait of Sicily, which separates the Italian island from the North African coast.
In January and February, around 7,900 migrants arrived on the Italian coast, an increase of more than 43 percent over the same period last year, according to Italy's interior ministry.
An increasingly violent and chaotic situation in Libya, a key jumping off point for migrants, has prompted a hike in the number of asylum seekers trying to reach Europe.
- Lucrative smuggling -
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has urged the European Union to do more to save migrant lives after a string of tragedies in the Mediterranean.
The deaths have highlighted the limited means and scope of Triton, an EU-run mission which took over in November from the Italian navy's Mare Nostrum search and rescue operation.
"Merchant vessels and national coastguards have again responded valiantly to the immense and growing challenge of saving the lives of vulnerable migrants," said Gauri van Gulik, a deputy director at Amnesty International.
"But that's far from enough in the face of this growing humanitarian crisis. Without a European search-and-rescue operation, the European Union's approach looks increasingly haphazard and negligent."
Italy decided to scale back the mission after its EU partners refused to share running costs of around nine million euros ($10 million) a month.
Triton, which comes under the authority of the EU borders agency Frontex, has a monthly budget of 2.9 million euros and its patrols are generally restricted to the territorial waters of EU member states.
UNHCR said at least 3,500 people died out of more than 218,000 migrants who crossed the Mediterranean, making it the most deadly migrant route in the world.
People smuggling, however, remains a lucrative business for the traffickers who pack people onto vessels of dubious quality for the dangerous crossing.
Some of the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean in February told UNHCR they had paid between $500-$1,000 for their crossing in rubber dinghies.
Boats routinely carry at least 100 people, which would mean $500,000-$100,000 in cash paid to traffickers per vessel.