Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy’s coastguard has said.

The Italian coastguard said on Thursday it had received a cooperation request from Maltese search and rescue after the boat capsized about 30 miles (50km) south-east off the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.

The coastguard said it had dispatched its own patrol boat to the scene, which “rescued 22 survivors and recovered nine deceased individuals, including a baby”.

The rescue operations were particularly challenging due to adverse weather and sea conditions in the area, with waves up to 2.5 metres, the coastguard added.

On Wednesday, MEPs voted to pass a landmark package of migration and asylum laws, but NGOs said the reforms would do nothing to reduce the numbers of people dying in the Mediterranean trying to enter the EU.

The nationality of the boat’s passengers was not known. Lampedusa, which sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily, is the first port of call for many people seeking to enter the EU.

“New terrible shipwreck near Lampedusa during a rescue operation,” UNHCR communication officer Filippo Ungaro posted on X late on Wednesday. He said the baby girl was a few months old.

The survivors, taken to Lampedusa, were “in a state of hypothermia and shock”, he added.

An aircraft from the Italian coastguard was conducting aerial searches for the missing people in the area of the shipwreck.

The deaths came shortly after rescuers farther east in the Mediterranean recovered the bodies of three girls off the Greek island of Chios. The Greek coastguard said on Wednesday that the trio had died after a boat carrying them from nearby Turkey ran into rocks.

Fourteen people, including eight other children, were rescued.