• Italy helps rescue 144 in latest disaster involving migrants lost at sea
• Up to 3,072 believed to have died in Mediterranean last year

Survivors of a capsized migrant boat off Libya have told the aid group Save the Children that around 400 people are believed to have drowned. Even before the survivors were interviewed, Italy’s coast guard said it assumed that there were many dead given the size of the ship and that nine bodies had been found.

The coast guard had helped rescue some 144 people on Monday and immediately launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others. No other survivors or bodies have been recovered.

On Tuesday, Save the Children said its interviews with survivors who arrived in Reggio Calabria indicated there may have been 400 others who drowned.

The UN refugee agency said the toll was likely given the size of the ship.

Earlier Tuesday, the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must quickly adapt to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores, as new figures showed that more than 7,000 migrants have been plucked from the Mediterranean in the last four days.

“The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm, and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,” the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told lawmakers in Brussels.

European coast guards have been overwhelmed by the numbers. As the weather has begun to warm, even more people have been fleeing conflict and poverty for better lives in Europe.

Of the 7,000 migrants saved in the Mediterranean since Friday, “over 3,500 are still on board rescue vessels and being taken to Italy and so far, 11 bodies were recovered”, EU migration spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Frontex border agency said that people smugglers trying to recover a wooden boat that had been carrying migrants had fired shots into the air to warn away a coast guard vessel.

The incident on Monday happened some 60 nautical miles off the coast of Libya after an Italian tugboat and the coast guard ship came to the rescue of 250 migrants.

The coast guard vessel was already carrying 342 migrants from a previous rescue.

It’s at least the second incident of this kind, raising concern for the safety of rescue workers and migrants alike.

Late next month, Avramopoulos is expected to unveil a new EU strategy aimed at tackling the migrant wave.