Some 600 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean over the past 24 hours, Italian authorities said on Monday, amid reports that at least 10 people had died in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast.
On Sunday, Italy’s ANSA news agency said the victims were travelling on a boat that sank some 30 nautical miles (55 kilometres) from Libya’s shoreline, carrying about 100 passengers.
The Italian navy said 55 people were saved by a passing cargo ship and subsequently loaded onto a navy patrol, which had already taken on board 105 migrants from another distressed vessel south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.
But a navy spokesman could not confirm ANSA’s report that ten bodies had been spotted at sea. He indicated that the search was continuing for the missing.
In other rescues, 463 people were picked up by navy patrols, cargo ships and coast guard vessels.
Italy has faced a record inflow of migrants this year, fuelled by unrest in Syria, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere. At least 120,000 have landed since January 1, compared to less than 43,000 for the whole of 2013.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has calculated that more than 2,200 migrants have died over the past eight months while trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea – three times the total in 2013.
“In the coming weeks IOM now expects the death toll to pass 3,000 – with a quarter of the year remaining,” the Geneva-based organization said on Friday.
GNA
