Italy's authorities on Monday recovered five dead migrants during the rescue operation of a sinking boat off southern Sicily Island, the Italian navy said in a statement.
A total of 61 migrants were pulled to safety. The survivors said however that there were around 80 people traveling on the packed boat, according to the statement. The search mission was continuing in the surrounding waters, it said.
More than 1,700 African migrants have been rescued in the night and were being transported to the Italian mainland by the navy ships that are part of the Italian government's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) search-and-rescue mission, the statement also added.
The new accident came after the death toll of another migrant-boat tragedy happened on Saturday in waters between Libya and Malta rose to 29 people, according to Maltese sources quoted by ANSA news agency. A small child also died later while being carried to Sicily, ANSA said.
The umpteenth deaths added to this year's dramatic death toll in the Mediterranean Sea, that according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR has exceeded 500 people so far.
Italy is struggling to deal with a huge increase of arrivals, which has recently prompted Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to call for Europe's help for the umpteenth time.
"Europe must change its immigration policy," Renzi stressed in Angola on Sunday during a tour in Africa.
According to recent figures of the Mediterranean of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a total of 67,000 migrants and asylum seekers have reached Italy since the beginning of 2014, including over 6,500 unaccompanied children.
Italy's southern coasts are considered a point of entry by the economic and political migrants who once free on the Italian soil can move on to nearby countries. .