More than 230 illegal migrants are presumed dead after a boat capsized in a violent storm off Libya last weekend. Two other boats are reported missing.

Twenty-three people "of African and Arab nationality" were saved by Libyan coastguards, according to local media, but 21 bodies have been found and the remaining 213 passengers are believed to have drowned.

Libyan coastguards are reported to be hunting for the two other boats, although it is not clear whether they were carrrying migrants, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said today.

"A boat with 257 migrants on board sank on Sunday off the coast of Libya. Twenty-three people were saved and 21 bodies were retrieved," Laurence Hart, the IOM chief of mission in Tripoli, told AFP.

The boats are thought to have been wrecked about 20 miles (30km) off the coast amid high winds.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva said that the tragedy illustrated the dangers faced by people caught in "irregular movements" of migrants and refugees which every year cost thousands of lives.

António Guterres, the High Commissioner, said Sunday’s sinking was "the latest tragic example of a global phenomenon in which desperate people take desperate measures to escape conflict, persecution and poverty in search of a better life".

A UNHCR spokesman said: "We are shocked by the reports of hundreds of people trying to reach Europe missing off the coast of Libya."

"Details are still sketchy, but reports indicate a number of vessels carrying several hundred people set sail from the coast of Libya in the direction of Italy over the last few days.

"At least one boat reportedly went down and hundreds of people aboard are reported missing."

Ahmed Rizq, an official at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo, told MENA, the Egyptian state news agency, that six Egyptians were among those saved. The boat had set sail from Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, on Sunday morning, he added.

The sinking took place as the spring people-smuggling season begins in the Mediterreanean. With 1,106 miles of coastline, Libya has become a popular destination country and transit point for immigrants from eastern and southern Africa heading for Europe.

About 37,000 illegal immigrants reached Italy last year, a 75 per cent increase on 2007, according to the Interior Ministry in Rome. The vast majority, 33,000, landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily.

Italy and Libya are to begin joint sea patrols aimed at stopping the illegal traffic, starting on May 15.

Roberto Maroni, Italy's Interior Minister, said in Rome that he hoped the date would mark the end of illegal migration from North Africa.

Another boatload of 350 migrants had a narrow escape when it got into difficulties near an oil platform on Sunday morning. The overloaded vessel was towed to safety by an Italian merchant ship flanked by a Libyan vessel, reaching Tripoli at about 3pm.

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