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 The victims had suffocated, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Navy spokesman Costantino Fantasia said the boat was carrying about
300 migrants when it ran into difficulty off the coast of Libya.
He said the dead were "presumably in the hold" but details were not
clear because the rescue mission was still going on. Fantasia said
the boat carrying the migrants had not capsized.
The naval vessel Cigala Fulgosi was leading the rescue mission and
had saved many other people, he said.
Last Tuesday, up to 50 migrants went missing when a large rubber
dinghy sank in the Mediterranean Sea and nearly 2,000 have been
picked up this week.
 Around 200 migrants were presumed killed earlier this month off the
coast of Libya when their boat capsized
The Mediterranean has become the world's most deadly crossing point
for migrants.
More than 2,000 people fleeing war and poverty have died this year
in attempts to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 deaths
during the whole of last year, the International Organization for
Migration said last week.
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People smugglers, mostly based in lawless Libya and charging
thousands of dollars for passage, have sent more than 100,000
migrants by sea to Italy so far this year, according to an Interior
Ministry tally. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Keith
Weir)
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