At least 73 migrants are reported missing and feared dead after their boat sank off the Libyan coast on Tuesday, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

The boat carrying migrants was reportedly bound for Europe on a route that the IOM has called “the world’s deadliest migratory sea crossing”.

The BBC reports that 11 bodies have been recovered so far by the Libyan Red Crescent and police.

Only seven people are understood to have survived the shipwreck but are in “extremely dire conditions” in hospital.

More than 1,450 deaths were also recorded by the IOM last year.