The Italian coast guard on Friday released a subaquatic video of a shipwreck believed to have caused the deaths of a number of migrants.  

The footage, shot using specialised search and rescue equipment, shows a small wooden vessel that sank and came to a rest on the seabed off the coast of Lampedusa, to the northwest of Malta.  

The coastguard said it had edited out footage of dead bodies out of respect for those who had lost their lives. It is not yet known how many people died in the shipwreck.  

The eerie video footage also shows what appear to be items of clothing strewn across the seabed.  

Nearly 600 people taken to Sicily

The Italian coast guard released the video just 24 hours after it was announced that nearly 600 people, including a four-month baby and two children with disability, would be disembarked in Sicily after being stranded at sea for several days.

Humanitarian NGO SOS Mediterranee told Times of Malta late on Thursday that the survivors aboard the Ocean Viking had been assigned Augusta, Sicily, as a safe port.

The 572 people were rescued from six boats in distress, and some of them have been aboard the Ocean Viking for eight days in crowded conditions as they waited for a safe port.

Questions sent by Times of Malta to the Maltese government about whether the migrants had been refused to disembark in Malta remain unanswered. 

Malta has also kept silent about a dramatic attempt by the Libyan coastguard to intercept a migrant boat in Malta's search-and-rescue zone last week.

The footage shows a crew aboard a Libyan coast guard vessel opening fire in the direction of a small boat carrying migrants and trying to ram it several times.

Malta has so far received 244 asylum seekers since the beginning of the year.