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Almost 700 migrants were rescued on Saturday off the southern coast of Italy. An announcement by the Italian coast guard on Sunday said that five dead bodies were found among the migrants.
This development comes as the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean is increasing due to more favorable sea travel conditions.
Most of the migrants, 674 of them, were found in a fishing boat about 200 km off the coast of Calabria, others were found in the water.
The migrants were sent early this morning to Sicily and Calabria, while the five dead bodies were sent to the hospital morgue in the Sicilian city of Messina.
According to data from Italy’s interior ministry, more than 34,000 asylum seekers and migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, up from around 25,500 in the same period last year.
Mediterranean countries have welcomed more than 150,000 migrants this year, at a time when food shortages caused by the conflict in Ukraine threaten a new wave of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
On Sunday morning, a Norwegian-flagged vessel “Ocean Viking” spotted an overcrowded dinghy in international waters off the coast of Libya and rescued 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied children.
The day before, the German ship “Sea-Watch” rescued over 400 migrants traveling in four overcrowded boats, among them several small children and two pregnant women.
In Lampedusa, around 750 migrants have landed today and yesterday, putting difficulties in the migrant reception center on the island, which handles over 1000 people./Voa
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