Five African migrants drowned on Monday after jumping into the Mediterranean as Egyptian coastguards raided a boat heading towards Italy, security officials said.

Twenty-five people, including the owner and crew of the vessel, were arrested after the raid on the boat near the city of Kafr al-Sheikh.

The nationalities of the dead have not yet been confirmed, the officials said.

The incident comes two days after the bodies of five Tunisian migrants trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa were recovered from the sea, while 49 others were rescued off the coast of Tunisia.

Deadly shipwrecks in recent months in the Mediterranean have failed to deter many migrants, including Syrian refugees, from risking the sea voyage to Europe.

Rights activists expect more migrants to cross the Mediterranean from Egypt as summer arrives, despite hundreds of deaths already this year.