Thousands of Migrants Rescued in Mediterranean
The Italian coastguard has said it had coordinated the rescue of thousands of migrants as they sailed across the Mediterranean on rickety boats, bringing the number of people rescued this weekend to 5,800.
The migrants were to be taken to the Italian region of Calabria as well as the islands of Sicily and Lampedusa, it said.
The bodies of eight migrants were found on board two of the rescued vessels. Two other people drowned after they jumped into the sea to rush towards the rescue teams, the coastguard said.
The Italian Coast Guard said the bodies were found in three separate rescue operations off Libya's coast. The Coast Guard was being aided by a tug and a merchant ship in at least some of the rescue efforts.
In one of those rescues, a cargo ship found three migrants dead and 105 survivors on a dinghy in the waters north of Tripoli, Libya.
The nationalities of those rescued have not yet been determined, he said.
Separately, authorities in Egypt said that three people died when a migrant boat attempting to reach Greece sank off its coast. Thirty-one people were rescued.
Meanwhile, a French patrol ship rescued 217 migrants from three small boats that had run into trouble off the coast of Libya on Saturday, the maritime police said in a statement, reports Reuters.
The Commandant Birot helped several dozen people in distress and intercepted two suspected people smugglers, according to the statement.
The private Migrant Offshore Aid Station, which runs one rescue ship in partnership with Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), said on Twitter it had saved 369 migrants, mainly from Eritrea, from a single overcrowded wooden boat.
The European Union last month said it would triple the funding of its search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean is considered the world's most dangerous sea migration route.
A report in April from Amnesty International calculated that from January to March, one out of every 23 migrants who sailed off from North Africa had perished in the Mediterranean crossing.
