The Tunisian captain of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of migrants, has been charged with reckless multiple homicide, Italian officials say.
He has also been charged along with a Syrian member of the crew with favouring illegal immigration.
The two were among 27 survivors who arrived in Sicily late on Monday.
A UNHCR spokeswoman has told the BBC the migrants' boat capsized after merchant vessels came too close to it.
Carlotta Sami of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy was at the Sicilian port of Catania to meet the survivors. Some 800 people are thought to have died in the disaster, she said.
There were nationals of Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Mali, Sierra Leone and Senegal on board, kept in three different layers in the boat.
"They left on Saturday morning around eight o'clock in the morning from Tripoli, and they started to have problems, and they were approached by merchant vessels during the night around 10 o'clock.
"They were big merchant vessels and probably in the wrong place; they went too close and at some point crashed, and the little boat lost its balance, and people started to move around.
"Those that were down wanted to come up and vice-versa, and many people fell into the water, and then the boat capsized.
The two men charged in connection with the disaster have been named as ship commander Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, a Tunisian, and crew member Mahmud Bikhit, 25, a Syrian.
The charges come after the EU set out a package of measures to try to ease the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
Search-and-rescue operations will be stepped up, and there will be a campaign to destroy traffickers' boats.
A homicide investigation has been opened into the disaster.
Separately, two of those rescued from a vessel carrying dozens of migrants that ran aground off the Greek island of Rhodes on Monday will be taken to the prosecutor's office, the BBC has learnt.
It is thought the two men, both Syrians, were in charge of the boat; they will face charges linked to illegally transporting 90 people to Greece, and responsibility for the deaths of three passengers.
Source:BBC
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