At least 30 migrants are feared to have drowned off Libya after their dinghy began to sink, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday.

Some 91 survivors rescued by the Italian coastguard on Thursday said the boat had been carrying between 120 and 140 people when it began to deflate, sparking panic and tipping some people overboard.

The Tunisian military rescued 86 African migrants at sea off the town of Zarzis aboard a makeshift boat bound for the Italian island of Lampedusa, an official said Wednesday.

The group were fleeing the conflict in neighboring Libya, from the port of Zuwarah about 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Tunisia, when their vessel started taking water on Tuesday afternoon, the Tunisian coastguard official said.

Fears a fresh wave of migrants could be poised to leave Libya for Europe mounted Friday as tales from those who have reached Italy revealed how terrifying conditions have become in the conflict-torn north African state.

Asylum-seekers who have made it to the Italian island of Lampedusa paint a grim picture of a country locked into a conflict which is beginning to have an impact on the people-smuggling trade.

Italian authorities on the tiny island of Lampedusa were Tuesday attempting to process more than 1,200 newly-arrived migrants in a reception center designed for a third of that number.

The mainly African migrants were among some 3,800 would-be immigrants to Europe rescued in the Mediterranean since Friday, according to figures compiled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Horror over the fate of 29 African migrants killed by exposure as they tried to reach Italy by sea turned to fury Tuesday over what humanitarian organizations said was an avoidable tragedy.

The migrants mostly perished on Italian coastguard patrol boats after being plucked from their distressed boat in icy seas off Libya on Monday.

At least 20 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by the Italian coastguard overnight have died of hypothermia, medics told AFP Monday.

"There are many dead, certainly at least 20," said a doctor at an emergency treatment center on the island of Lampedusa, located south of Sicily and close to Libya, from where a group of over 100 migrants are thought to have set off in a bid to reach Italy.

A group of some 130 migrants, including a baby, who were plucked from the sea off the coast of Malta after their dingy deflated, landed safety on the small Mediterranean island on Sunday, its navy said.

They were rescued overnight in an operation involving officials from Italy, Malta and the United States, who were still monitoring 25 boats packed with migrants.

Italy's navy said Saturday it has picked up nearly 3,000 migrants attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat in the last 24 hours.

The latest figures, announced on the navy's official Twitter feed, highlighted the scale of the problem just days after Italy's government said almost as many migrants had arrived so far this year as in the whole of 2013.

Thirteen Moroccan immigrants held in a migrant center on the outskirts of Rome have sewn their lips together in the second such protest at their lengthy detention, Italian media reported Sunday.

The men, aged between 20 and 30, had already stitched their mouths shut in a week-long protest in December over their long stay in a supposedly short-term detention facility.

Dozens of asylum-seekers on a boat that sank near the Italian coast last month with the loss of 366 lives were raped and tortured in Libya before starting their journey, the police said on Friday.

A group of 130 migrants from Eritrea were held for ransom in the desert, according to testimony from survivors that led to the arrest of a Somali man in Italy accused of being one of the traffickers.