The Italian coast guard says it is in the process of trying to rescue as many as 3,000 migrants after receiving distress calls from a flotilla of four boats and 14 rubber dinghies off the coast of Libya.
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In addition to a plethora of other Italian vessels, a Norwegian military ship was also involved in rescue efforts.
At least another 1,000 rescued migrants and refugees were reported to be headed for Italian ports on other boats as the wave of new arrivals triggered increasingly virulent attacks on centre-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s handling of the migration crisis.
So far this year, more than 104,000 migrants from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have landed at Italy’s southern ports after being rescued in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Police in Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily, announced Saturday that they had arrested six Egyptian nationals on suspicion of people smuggling following the rescue of a stricken boat on August 19. Migrants travelling on one of the boats said their vessel was packed with more than 10 times the number of people it was designed for. “It is clearly a tactic by human smugglers who wait for good weather and sea conditions before they send out as many boats as they can”, he said.
Each of them paid 2000 euros ($2,200) to the traffickers for the passage from Egypt to Italy, they said in statements to the police. Most of those making the risky Mediterranean crossing are from war torn countries or fleeing violence and poverty in parts of the Middle East and Africa.
Of the 312 survivors, there were 45 women and three children.
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Earlier on Saturday, the vessel rescued 320 people before being diverted to the latest emergency.
