Credits: AFP

Up to sixty-four African migrants have died when the overcrowded rubber dinghy they had left Libya with sank in the Mediterranean, authorities said on Monday.

The Italian Coast Guard managed to rescue eighty-six passengers from the boat after it began to deflate on Saturday morning, according to an official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Professional divers, trained for such interventions, jumped into the water to rescue dozens of people, some of them had remained aboard the half submerged boat, while others were struggling in the cold waters of the Mediterranean.

Read more: LaPresse