Up to 700 feared dead after migrant boat sinks off Libya -newspaper

Reuters
Migrants are helped as they disembark from a Coast Guard boat in the Sicilian harbour of Palermo April 18, 2015. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

ROME (Reuters) - As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, the Times of Malta reported on Sunday. Twenty eight people were rescued in the incident, which happened in an area just off Libyan waters, 120 miles south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the newspaper's website reported. The emergency was declared at about midnight. The boat is believed to have capsized when migrants moved to one side of the vessel when a merchant ship approached.