Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean on Sunday after the boat in which they were traveling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy's coast guard said.
The tragedy comes just weeks after a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died, Reuters said.
Alarm Phone, a charity that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, assumed the 30 people were dead and blamed Italy for not sending its coast guard despite being repeatedly alerted on Saturday that the boat was in trouble.
"Clearly, the Italian authorities were trying to avoid that the people would be brought to Italy, delaying intervention so that the so-called Libyan coastguard would arrive and forcibly return people to Libya," it said in a statement late on Sunday.
However, Italy's coast guard said the capsizing occurred outside the Italian Search and Rescue area (SAR), and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Rome was doing all it could to avoid shipwrecks.
