The search continued for what Italian media said could be as many as 20 missing people, although it remained uncertain exactly how many people were aboard the vessel.
Officials said two bodies were recovered overnight and a third washed ashore on Sunday.
“The winds are blowing into the coast so any other victims should be quite close to the land. Our hope is that there aren’t any others,” Giuseppe Minotauro, a local police official, told SkyTG24 television.
Television pictures showed the sailing boat, believed to have come from Greece or Turkey, washed up near the shore with debris floating in the water.
Thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia have died attempting to cross by sea into Italy, mainly traveling in overloaded and unsafe fishing vessels.
Most of the vessels that succeed in the crossing have arrived in southern islands like Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily. A smaller, but still substantial number, have arrived in the region of Apulia, on Italy’s Adriatic coast.
