Hundreds of migrants are believed to have died in the tragedy on Friday night which led to the arrival in Malta on Sunday of a migrants’ boat carrying 25 dead bodies.

The boat carrying the dead bodies was towed to Malta by an AFM patrol boat on which there were another four dead people.

But these migrants, who fled Libya and drowned in the lower deck of their boat, were not the only ones who died in that tragedy. Some 400 survivors and a dead baby were taken to Italy.

After interviewing some of the survivors, Italy’s La Repubblica said that the reality was much more dramatic.

News agency Ansa reported that Italian police were still trying to establish an accurate death toll after chilling new details emerged.

In an operation coordinated by the AFM, some 40 migrants were rescued by the Danish petrol tanker in Maltese waters close to Lampedusa. The survivors and a dead baby were taken to Messina. They told investigators that around 60 people had been stabbed by traffickers indiscriminately and their bodies thrown into the sea.

Dozens of migrants were also feared to have drowned during transfer to the Danish freighter from their boat, thought to have been carrying between 700 and 750 people.

Investigators also established that a double tariff system applied to the sea voyage, with migrants of Arab origin paying $1,000 to $2,000 for a place on deck and Africans paying $250 to $500 for a passage in the hold.