The incident occurred just over a week after at least 319 people drowned when
a boat carrying Eritrean and Somali migrants sank near the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
“There are at least 200 people in the sea and our helicopters are picking them up,” said a navy spokesman, adding that two navy ships were also on the scene.
Last week’s disaster was one of the worst in a long migrant crisis that has seen tens of thousands of people arriving in small, unsafe boats in southern Italy. Lampedusa, a tiny island located midway between Sicily and Tunisia, has borne the brunt.