Tunisian authorities rescued 71 migrants, including 37 Bangladeshis, as their boat began to sink after setting out from neighbouring Libya for Italy, the National Guard said.

The motorboat used by traffickers for the journey by sea from the coast of Libya to Europe was barely capable of carrying 35 people. Yet, 75 people, including the 64 Bangladeshis, were crammed on board.

Rescuers pulled 700 boat migrants to safety in the Mediterranean and found 23 bodies during one operation on Friday, an Italian coastguard spokesman says, the second loss of multiple lives recorded in the area so far.

The flight data recorder from the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea last month is retrieved, Egyptian investigators say. The news comes a day after search teams recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of Flight MS804.

About 340 migrants are rescued and four bodies are pulled from the sea after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, Greek officials say. Others are thought to be missing from the boat which was found in international waters, 75 nautical miles south of the Greek island of Crete.

The head of Egypt's forensics authority dismisses a suggestion that the small size of the body parts retrieved since an EgyptAir plane crashed last week indicated there was an explosion on board.

One of the people on board the EgyptAir flight almost did not make the trip after losing his passport last week, his friends tell media in France.

Debris from the missing EgyptAir flight has been found floating in the Mediterranean, Egyptian officials say.

French police are examining what appears to be a suicide bomb belt dumped on a Paris street, 10 days after the attacks that killed 130 people.

Two boats carrying 140 migrants, including children, land at the RAF base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, the Ministry of Defence says.

Greece was hit by a huge new surge in migrants as the United Nations approved a European seize-and-destroy military operation against people smugglers in the Mediterranean.

Twenty-one rescue operations pick up more than 4,500 people off the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard, as calm seas sparked a flurry of attempts at the perilous Mediterranean boat crossing.

Eight rescue operations picked up more than 2,200 people off the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard from 10 boats in distress in the Mediterranean.

A Nigerian migrant mother calls her baby girl "Gift" after a difficult delivery on an Italian navy ship that rescued her in the Mediterranean.

Three people have been arrested in Libya on suspicion of involvement in launching a boat packed with migrants.

At least 40 migrants have died after apparently getting trapped and suffocating in the water-logged hold of a boat in the Mediterranean.

Corpses of 17 migrants along with 454 survivors were brought ashore in Sicily by an Italian naval vessel.

A total of 741 migrants travelling in six boats have been rescued off Sicily, the Italian coastguard says.

Seventy Afghan and Iraqi migrants have been rescued from a packed boat off the southeastern coast of Italy and brought to shore on Sunday

Libyan government adviser Abdul Basit Haroun says Islamic State (IS) fighters are being smuggled into Europe by gangs in the Mediterranean on boats filled with migrants.