At least 320 boat migrants are feared to have drowned in shipwrecks in recent days as crossings continue to surge, the United Nations refugee and migration agencies reported on Tuesday.
At least 129 people are feared to have perished in the worst of the tragedies last Thursday when a rubber dingy carrying at least 133 people began taking on water just hours after setting sail from Libya, UNHCR said.
Libyan fishermen rescued two Sudanese nationals and two Nigerians and put them on another dinghy which was intercepted by Italian coastguard, the UN migration agency, the International Organisation for Migration reported.
The survivors said Libyan smugglers had approached the dinghy and stolen its engine, causing it to drift before capsizing, according to IOM.
A total 110 migrants are believed to be missing after an incident off Libya's northwest port city of Zuwara on Friday, according to 25 male survivors who were rescued by local fishermen, the IOM said.
The same day, the remains of a man and a woman were retrieved off Libya's northwest coastal city of Sabratha by residents.
The bodies of 26 migrants were recovered off the Libyan coast at the weekend, IOM said.
In another deadly shipwreck, a boat carrying at least 85 people believed to be from Syria and North Africa broke in two and sank with many families and children on board after setting sail from Libya late on Thursday, UNHCR said.
Seven more people were reported dead or missing when a boat sank in the Mediterranean after setting sail from Libya last Wednesday, according to survivors from the shipwreck who arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina on Monday, UNHCR reported.
UNHCR urged better Mediterranean search and rescue operations to safeguard the thousands of people setting sail each week, as well as legal means of entering Europe for refugees and asylum-seekers and conflict resolution and poverty reduction in their homelands to halt migration.
At least 4,860 migrants were rescued off the North African coast since Friday, IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said.
A total 81,292 migrants entered Europe by sea this year through 18 June and 1,985 people perished on the voyage, according to IOM.
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