Italian Navy salvages a wreck ship that sank off Libyan coast in 2015

The Italian Navy has recovered a ship that sank off the coast of Libya last year with hundreds of people on board.

Up to 700 refugees were believed to be on the vessel when it went down in the first half of 2015 while on its way to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Rescuers recovered some bodies after the incident but hundreds of others remained unrecovered in the Mediterranean Sea.

The UN refugee agency at the time said that the boat flipped when those on board scrambled to attract the attention of a passing ship.

Tens of thousands of people from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East use maritime routes connecting the African continent to European islands in the Mediterranean.