More than 100 people, including children, could have died after their boat sank off southern Italy, reports indicate.

Already, some 63 migrants including 12 children including a baby are confirmed dead after the overloaded boat carrying about 200 people broke apart while trying to land on a beach in Italy’s southern Calabria region on Sunday.

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Italy&039;s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has urged EU institutions to take action to stop clandestine migrant boat journeys.

On board the boat, which had set out from Turkey a few days earlier, were said to be people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Bodies were recovered from the beach at a nearby seaside resort in the Calabria region.

The coastguard said 80 people had been found alive, "including some who managed to reach the shore after the sinking", meaning many more remained unaccounted for.

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One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges, customs police said.

A 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan lost his 28-year-old sister, who died on the beach next to him.

A 43-year-old man from Afghanistan survived with his 14-year-old son, but his wife and his three other children, who were 13, nine, and five, did not make it.

"This is yet another tragedy happening near our shores. It reminds us all that the Mediterranean is a giant mass grave, with tens of thousands of souls in it, and it continues to widen," said Francesco Creazzo, from SOS Méditerranée, a non-governmental organisation engaged in rescue operations in the central Mediterranean.

"There is no end in sight; in 2013, people said 'never again' to the little white coffins of Lampedusa, in 2015, they said 'never again' in front of the lifeless body of a two-year-old Syrian child on a beach.

"Now the words 'never again' are not even pronounced any more. We only hear 'no more departures', but unfortunately people keep venturing on this journey and they keep dying," he added.

Speaking at the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday morning, Secretary General António Guterres called on countries to do more to help refugees and migrants, and called for safer travel routes and strengthened rescue operations.

Prime Minister Meloni on Monday said the only way to tackle the issue of migrant departures "seriously" and "with humanity" was to stop migrant boat journeys.

Speaking to Italian public broadcaster Rai 1, she said she had written to the European Council and European Commission calling for immediate action to stop migrant boat departures in order to prevent more deaths.

"The more people depart, the more risk dying," she said.

Earlier on Sunday, she expressed "deep sorrow" after the incident and blamed the deaths on people smugglers.

"It is inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of the 'ticket' they paid in the false perspective of a safe journey," she said.

The vessel is reported to have sunk after it crashed against rocks during rough weather.

According to monitoring groups, more than 20,000 people have died or gone missing at sea in the central Mediterranean since 2014.