Three migrants were missing on Monday (March 25) after the oil tanker Vault had to rescue a group of 139 people in distress in international waters off the Libyan coast during the night.
The three missing individuals were reported to be men from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Syria, who fell into the sea while being transferred from their 12-meter boat to the larger oil tanker.
The tanker rescued the small migrant boat with a reported 139 people on board, including one woman. The group includes people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Mali, Guinea, Ethiopia and Eritrea and had reportedly had departed from Sabratha in Libya.
The 139 saved migrants were transferred to the coast guard's Cp319 cutter which took them to the island of Lampedusa.
They are currently at the hotspot in the Imbriacola district, which is currently hosting a total of 717 migrants at present.
More missing person cases in Med
The incident brings the tally of people reported as missing in the past three days to five, including a 15-month-old girl from Cameroon and a 15-year-old boy from Guinea.
In this most recent case, police said that they will question the travel companions of the three men reported missing to try and understand how they ended up in the water during the rescue operation.
The 12-meter boat on which the migrants had departed from Sabratha, Libya, on Saturday was left adrift in the Mediterranean.