Watch: Dramatic footage shows diver rescuing baby girl from frozen sea

In dramatic footage released by the Italian coastguard, a diver plunges into the freezing waves off the coast of Lampedusa, Sicily, and rescues a one-year-old girl. 

Headcam footage shows one of the rescuers swimming over to a group of the stranded migrants, and taking the girl into his arms.

He then manages to swim over to the lifeboat, keeping the child’s head above the water, before his colleagues haul her aboard.

The young girl’s mother and father were also rescued.

At least 149 people were rescued and around twenty are thought to be missing after the incident under two kilometres off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea.

The bodies of five women had been retrieved early on Sunday after the shipwreck.

Survivors said up to 20 people were unaccounted for, adding those missing at sea were from Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan.