Six migrants and refugees have died and 40 are missing after the boat they were travelling on capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, a United Nations official says.

UNHCR representative Chiara Cardoletti said on Wednesday that the inflatable dinghy had left Tunisia on Monday carrying 56 people, adding that “still too many dead in a new shipwreck in the Mediterranean”.

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Italian coastguard vessels have rescued 10 people and resumed the search for other survivors, Italy’s news agency ANSA reported. It said the shipwreck took place near the island of Lampedusa.

Survivors said some of the missing had fallen overboard in rough seas, according to AGI news agency, adding that those travelling on the boat were from Ivory Coast, Mali, The Gambia and Cameroon.

Media reports added that a separate group of 40 people landed on Lampedusa after travelling from Sfax in Tunisia on metal boats.

There were five landings in Lampedusa on Tuesday, with a total of 213 people arriving, bringing the number of people at the island’s reception centre to 230, the reports added.

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Some 8,743 people have arrived in Italy so far this year, slightly more than the arrivals in the same period last year, according to Italy’s Ministry of the Interior.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN-related organisation, says more than 31,500 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014. The figure stands at 246 this year so far.