STECCATO DI CUTRO, Italy: The death toll from the migrant boat tragedy off Italy's southern coast rose to at least 63 after rescue crews recovered several more bodies on Monday, driving home once more the desperate and dangerous boat crossings of people seeking to reach Europe. Dozens more were believed to be missing.

At least eight of the dead were children who perished after a wooden boat broke up in stormy seas on the shoals off the Calabrian coast on Sunday. Eighty people survived.

'Many of them didn't know how to swim and they saw people disappear in the waves; they saw them die,' said Giovanna Di Benedetto of Doctors Without Borders, which sent psychologists to help survivors.

More were feared dead, given survivor accounts that the boat, which set off from Turkey last week, was carrying about 170 people.

State television quoted Carabinieri paramilitary police as saying on Monday night that two more bodies were recovered later in the day, but a few hours later the rescue coordination center said only one body had been recovered in the afternoon. The discrepancy wasn't immediately explained.

The center also said in a statement that two Coast Guard vessels and one border police boat would keep up the search overnight, while on Tuesday morning, two helicopters and specialized divers would resume their search.

Authorities in the southern city of Crotone asked relatives to provide descriptions and photos of loved ones to help identify the dead in a makeshift morgue at a sports arena.

Fazal Amin, himself a migrant from Pakistan, waited outside the stadium in Crotone for information about a friend's brother in Turkey whose phone stopped working.

'He just wants to know if he is dead or alive,' Amin said.

Italian authorities rejected criticism of a delayed rescue, noting they had dispatched two rescue boats shortly after the European Union's border agency spotted the 20-foot (6-meter) boat on Saturday night as it headed toward shore. The rescuers had to turn back because of the rough seas, the authorities said.

The beach at the village of Steccato di Cutro, on Calabria's Ionian coast, was littered on Monday with the splintered remains of the migrant vessel, as well as with passengers' belongs: a toddler's tiny pink sneaker, Mickey Mouse pajama pants and a yellow plastic pencil case decorated with pandas. A few life jackets were scattered amid the debris.

The United Nations and Doctors Without Borders said many of the victims were Afghans, including members of large families, as well as Pakistanis, Syrians and Iraqis. Afghans were the second top nationality to seek asylum in the EU last year, and have increasingly fled the spiraling security, humanitarian and economic troubles that followed the Taliban's takeover in August 2021.

Sixteen Pakistanis survived the shipwreck, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Twitter on Monday, adding that survivors told authorities that 20 people from the country had boarded the vessel.

Two Coast Guard vessels searched the seas north to south off Steccato di Cutro while a helicopter flew overhead and a four-wheel vehicle patrolled the beach on Monday. A strong wind whipping the seas churned up splinters of the boat, gas tanks, food containers and shoes.

Firefighters were not optimistic about finding additional survivors.

'I think no, because the sea conditions are too difficult,' said Roberto Fasano, the provincial fire commander. 'But we can never abandon this hope.'

Italy's Sky TG24 said at least three people had been detained on suspicion they helped organize the trip from the city of Izmir, western Turkey.

Italy is a prime destination for migrant smugglers, especially for traffickers launching boats from Libyan shores, but also from Turkey. According to UN figures, arrivals from the Turkish route accounted for 15 percent of the 105,000 migrants who arrived on Italian shores last year, with nearly half of those fleeing from Afghanistan.