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Rome. — Nearly 1 000 migrants and refugees were rescued off Italy’s coast, while 10 migrants perished in the southern Mediterranean, officials said yesterday. The rescue vessels, including coast guard, navy and cargo ships, saved 941 people in seven separate operations that began on Tuesday, the coast guard said.
The survivors were being ferried to southern Italian ports.
The migrants had been aboard five motorised dinghies and two larger vessels. One of the larger boats capsized, and 10 bodies were spotted or plucked from the sea.
For months now, hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of migrants, fleeing conflicts or poverty have been reaching Italy practically weekly on smugglers’ boats setting sail from bases in Libya.
This year’s pace has seen a sharp up-tick from 2014’s already staggering count of 170 000 migrants and asylum-seekers rescued at sea by Italy’s coast guard, navy and other vessels, including cargo boats pressed into humanitarian service.
According to Interior Ministry figures, 7 882 migrants arrived on Italian coasts in the first two months of this year, compared to 5 506 in that period in 2014.
The coast guard said the migrants saved in the latest rescues claimed to be Syrians, Palestinians, Libyans, Tunisians or from sub-Saharan Africa. — AP
Online Reporter