Up to 400 migrants, including children, are feared drowned after a boat capsized off Libya on Tuesday, leaving only about 150 survivors.
Since Friday, 8,500 people have been rescued from the Mediterranean after trying to sail from the north African coast, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
The numbers are expected to climb rapidly, with EU border agency Frontex predicting that over 500,000 people are waiting to set sail from Libya
over the summer, but migrants are likely to use other routes too.
Dying to get here
This is the challenge facing Italy and other EU countries including the UK, which have proved prime destinations for migrants in the past.
Thousands of people are risking death to seek a better life, but the UK's political parties have starkly different views on how to deal with migrants' determination to reach Europe's shores.
Last year the UK Foreign Office said it would not support future search and rescue operations in order to prevent migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean sea.
It said such operations can encourage more people to attempt the perilous sea crossing, but offered support to a new European effort to enforce European border security.
What a ****ing bunch of ****s
