TRIPOLI — More than 200 migrants attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean were feared to have drowned Wednesday after their overcrowded fishing boat capsized off Libya.

The boat, believed to have been carrying more than 600 migrants, including women and children, ran into difficulty about 15 nautical miles off Libya and sent out a distress call, which was picked up by the coastguard in Sicily.

Coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini said around 400 people had been rescued from the water while 25 bodies had been recovered.

Irish patrol vessel LE Niamh and a ship deployed by medical charity Doctors Without Borders were among the first to be dispatched.

According to the Irish authorities, 367 people, including 12 women and 13 children, had been rescued.

While the sea was very calm, “the boat overturned and sank quickly because it was made of metal,” Fossi said.

More than 2,000 people have already died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

Also on Wednesday, 94 people on board a rubber boat were rescued in a separate operation, coastguards said.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that EU governments have a duty to help the flood of migrants arriving in Europe and not cave in to “populist” demands to turn them back.

He said he was disappointed that EU ministers had failed late last month to agree on how to distribute a total of 40,000 mostly Syrian and Eritrean migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece.