At least two people have died with more than 30 also missing after two ships carrying migrants sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa according to the UN’s migration agency.
The two boats had set off from the port of Sfax in Tunisia carrying 48 and 42 people respectively.
Italian coastguards recovered the bodies of a woman from the Ivory Coast and her one-year-old baby.
Italian authorities said they were investigating the shipwrecks.
Coastguards rescued 57 migrants when the vessels sank on Saturday, about 23 nautical miles (46 km) south-west of Lampedusa.
The tragedy follows June’s Greek boat disaster which left at least 78 dead and hundreds missing.
On Sunday, firefighters and mountain rescue teams were preparing to rescue 20 migrants trapped on a rocky part of Lampedusa’s coastline.
The migrants have been there since late Friday after strong winds pushed the boats against the rocks.
After more than two days of sailing in bad weather, NGO Open Arms said it had started disembarking 195 rescued migrants in the southern Italian port of Brindisi.
Police chief Emanuele Ricifari, who is in charge of the investigation, told local media the traffickers would have known that rough seas were forecast.
“Whoever allowed them, or forced them, to leave with this sea is an unscrupulous criminal lunatic,” Mr Ricifari said.
In recent days, Italian patrol boats and charity groups have rescued another 2,000 people who have arrived on the island.
The Red Cross has provided some of the migrants with food, water, clothes and emergency thermal blankets.
But the coastguard has said bad weather and the poor quality of the boats continue to hinder the rescue operations.
In some instances, the engines are stolen from the boats at sea, so that traffickers can reuse them.
Mr Ricifari, urging the traffickers to stop, said: “Rough seas are forecast for the next few days. Let’s hope they stop. It’s sending them to slaughter with this sea.”
NGOs say Italy’s far-right government has made their task more difficult by passing laws that have the effect of forcing rescue ships to use faraway ports.
Charities have warned that this increases their navigation costs and reduces the amount of time ships can patrol the areas of the Mediterranean where such disasters are common.
The Italian Interior ministry said migration figures by sea had doubled this year to 92,000, compared with 42,600 recorded in the same period in 2022.
More than 1,800 people have lost their lives in the Central Mediterranean crossing from North Africa to Europe – thought to be the world’s deadliest.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the actual figures were likely to be much higher. “Lots of bodies are being found at sea, suggesting there are many shipwrecks we never hear about,” said IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo.
