A ship carrying some 400 migrants drifts between Libya and Malta and is in danger of sinking.
The alarm helpline said on Sunday amid a sharp rise in the number of migrants from North Africa seeking to cross the Mediterranean.
Alarm Phone said on Twitter that it received a call from a ship that left Tobruk, Libya last night and authorities have been notified, although the rescue operation has yet to begin.
The caller reported that the people on board were in a panic and several of them needed medical attention. The ship is out of fuel, the lower deck is flooded and the captain has abandoned ship and there is no one to steer him, he added.
According to the report, the vessel is now within the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) area.
German NGO Sea-Watch International tweeted that searches were being carried out on Sunday for ships in distress in the Mediterranean, including the one from which the Alarm Phone was called.
Another NGO, Resqship, said on Sunday that at least 23 migrants had died the previous night in the Mediterranean in another shipwreck.
The NGO said on Twitter that 25 people were found in the water during the rescue operation, 22 of them survived and two died. But Resqship added that their crew had learned that around 20 other people had drowned.
Last week, 440 migrants were rescued off Malta after a complex 11-hour rescue operation in stormy seas by MSF’s Geo Barents, while at least 23 African migrants lost the lead, and four died on Saturday after two ships attempting to reach Italy sank off Tunisia.
