Thousands of migrants and refugees were rescued off the coast of Libya on Monday during a large scale effort involving Italian naval ships and other vessels.
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Migrants from Eritrea are seen onboard a rescue boat of the Spanish NGO Proactiva, off the Libyan coast in Mediterranean Sea August 29, 2016.
On Sunday more than 1100 people were rescued in the same area. Médecins Sans Frontières is still transporting people rescued Monday to Vibo Valentia, Italy, where they will be treated for injuries, processed by immigration authorities and either allowed into Europe or sent back to their home countries.
The Italian coast guard said the rescued migrants are being taken to ports in Calabria and Sicily.
According to the report, deaths in the Mediterranean this year have reached 3,120, with IOM Libya reporting 120 bodies discovered on the beaches of Sabratha over a month ago.
“The refugees, believed to be mostly from Somalia and Eritrea, were on flimsy rubber dinghies that become highly unstable in high seas”, Al Jazeera reports.
Five-day-old twins were among those rescued, according to MSF, and were immediately airlifted to an Italian hospital upon arrival.
Libya’s chaos and lack of border controls have made it into a transit route.
This month, an MSF ship taking part in migrant rescue operations came under attack from armed men who shot at the vessel before briefly climbing aboard, the medical charity said.
The people saved had just a small amount of fuel in their boats and hoped to make it at least 15 to 20 miles out to sea to reach awaiting rescuers.
Despite the increase in migrants making the risky cross to Italy and other European countries, the numbers are said to be a little less compared to the same period past year.
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In March, the European Union struck a deal with Turkey to try to stop new arrivals crossing from Turkey to Greece while Balkan nations closed their borders, moves that have reduced the number of arrivals using the so-called eastern Mediterranean route. Last year, more than 1 million migrants traveled to Europe. Two weeks ago, 2,200 people reportedly tried to make the journey from Libya to Italy by sea, while this week more than 6,000 people took the risky route, which has become the busiest route in the migration wave to Europe.
