More than two hundred migrants are missing in the Mediterranean Sea after a boat trying to reach Europe broke down. Tunisia's Tap state news agency says the Tunisian coast guard and army rescued 570 but up to 270 went missing in the stampede to get off the fishing vessel. An operation to rescue the would-be migrants began off the Tunisian Kerkennah islands on Wednesday. The mainly African migrants were on a boat bound for Italy from Libya. Italy has faced a massive influx of refugees since the fall of the regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia in January and the outbreak of war in neighbouring Libya.