DHAKA: More than 140 survivors, plucked from the sea after their overloaded boat sank in the latest deadly migrant tragedy to hit the Mediterranean, arrived in Malta on Saturday.

The sinking killed more than 30, most of them women and children, when the boat packed with people desperate to reach European shores went down off Malta near the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to officials, reports The Straits Times.

It came just over a week after a similar tragedy killed more than 300 Africans in the deadliest refugee disaster to date in the region, prompting the European Union to call for sea patrols to cope with the flood of migrants knocking on its doors.

In Friday’s sinking, a boat carrying some 230 refugees capsized in rough seas around 100km south of Lampedusa and 110km from Malta.

BDST: 1553 HRS, OCT 12, 2013
RoR/RIS