20110407
Reuters
ROME (Reuters) - Italian rescue vessels resumed their search in the early hours of Thursday for survivors from the boat carrying refugees from Libya which sank south of Sicily a day earlier but hopes of finding anyone alive were fading.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said a total of 51 people, most from central Africa, had been picked up by rescue vessels which answered a distress signal sent via Maltese authorities in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"Survivors said that there were another 150 people, and the search for them is being conducted at sea at the moment with the help of two merchant ships," he told parliament.

"The search is continuing but hopes of finding anyone still alive grow weaker by the hour," he said.

Wednesday's incident was the most dramatic of its kind for some time but many smaller boats carrying migrants have sunk while attempting to reach southern Europe from Africa, killing unknown numbers of refugees and migrants.

Officials said on Wednesday that the boat left Libya on Monday loaded well above capacity and capsized in the early hours of Wednesday after its motor failed.

Although the boat was in Maltese waters when it got into difficulties, Italian rescue ships were alerted because of a lack of appropriate vessels in Malta, Maroni said.

Survivors have been housed in a reception centre in Lampedusa, the southern Italian island at the centre of a recent North African migrant crisis but there was some uncertainty about the number of people on the boat when it sank.

The International Organisation for Migration, a migrant agency with officials on Lampedusa, said on Wednesday there were 300 on board but Italian officials have spoken of 200.