The U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday that multiple migrants died in a boat accident off the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.

Filippo Ungaro, a spokesman for the agency, posted on the platform X that 20 bodies had been recovered so far. The same number of people are still missing.

The Italian news agency ANSA reported that there are several dozen survivors. Search and rescue operations were still ongoing.

Citing survivors, ANSA also reported that two boats left Libya on Tuesday evening with up to 100 migrants on board. The overcrowded vessels capsized on their way to Sicily, about 14 nautical miles (26 kilometres) off the coast of Lampedusa.

The Italian Red Cross said 60 people - 56 men and four women - had survived the shipwreck. They were exhausted but in a stable condition, it said.

Migrants frequently make attempts to cross the Mediterranean, mostly from Libya or Tunisia. This often results in serious accidents. Ungaro wrote in his X post that 675 deaths have been recorded in the central Mediterranean region so far this year.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi wrote on X of a dramatic event that once again shows "how urgent it is to prevent dangerous sea voyages in the departure zones and to relentlessly combat the unscrupulous human trafficking that fuels this phenomenon."