'Some of us are escaping from Egypt because there are people who lost relatives after the fall of (deposed Islamist president Mohamed) Morsi,' one migrant was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
'What is happening in Egypt is forcing these people to flee from where they risk their lives and find refuge in the first port where they can find more security than in their country,' he said.
Local police said they had found 126 of them, who all said they were Syrian, and had identified three Egyptian crew members as the possible traffickers.
Seventy-seven migrants - who said they were from Nigeria and Ghana - arrived on another boat, a small dinghy, which was intercepted and taken to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa earlier on Monday.
