( CNN ) -- Italian authorities found 25 dead bodies in a boat that was carrying refugees and was discovered off the coast of the southern island of Lampedusa , an Italian official news agency reported Monday . The bodies of the victims -- all males -- were found during an inspection of the boat after it was accompanied ashore , the ANSA news agency said . Officials could not immediately say how the men died nor did they know from where the boat departed . The boat was also carrying 271 other passengers , including 36 women and 21 children , the news agency said . Lampedusa , the closest Italian island to Africa , has become a destination for tens of thousands of refugees seeking to enter European Union countries . More than 30,000 migrants and refugees from Tunisia and Libya have risked this dangerous journey to Lampedusa in the last year . Lampedusa and Malta , both islands less than an hour 's flight from the North African coast , have taken the brunt of the subsequent wave of migration . At one point , the population of migrants vastly outnumbered Lampedusa 's residents , who number about 6,000 .
The deceased are all men , the ANSA news agency says . A police officer stands guard at a checkpoint in Bangui, Central African Republic, on Tuesday. It has become a destination for thousands of refugees seeking to enter EU countries .