{{Italian coastguard footage showed some of the 5,000 migrants rescued over the weekend,
The Italian navy has found about 30 bodies in a fishing boat carrying hundreds of migrants between Sicily and the North African coast.}}
The migrants who died appeared to have been asphyxiated.
The discovery was made when rescuers boarded the vessel to evacuate a number of people said to be in distress, two of them pregnant women.
The navy says that over the weekend it rescued more than 5,000 migrants trying to cross from North Africa.
The figure was released soon after news emerged of the discovery of the bodies.
The navy said that those who died were crammed into a compartment below decks.
The fishing boat was carrying about 600 migrants and is now being towed to the town of Pozzallo, southern Sicily.
{{Italy has strengthened its sea rescue operations after a migrant boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa in October, killing 360 people}}
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