8 more die in Med sea

At least eight people died and an unknown number were missing as a new series of Mediterranean boat dramas left Italy on the verge of a record number of migrant arrivals.

Confirming the latest fatalities in what is already a record year for migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Italy's coastguard told AFP that 1,400 people had been saved in 12 separate operations between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon.

The rescues will take the number of migrants to have arrived in Italy by sea this year to almost 170,000, a whisker short of the previous record set in 2014.

Unusually, the survivors included "many families" from Syria, according to MOAS, as well as people from the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Sudan.

The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by IOM and UNHCR.