Almost 6,500 people risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea on Monday, while a further 3,000 migrants were rescued from the Strait of Sicily yesterday during 30 different rescue missions.
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The wet personal belonging of a migrant are spread out to dry in the sun after he was rescued from the Mediterranean sea off Libya on Monday.
There, rescue boats from Italy, the European Union border agency Frontex, Doctors Without Borders, and Proactiva Open Arms were waiting for them, the BBC says. Most of the rescued migrants were believed to be Africans.
Prior to Monday’s rescue, August had been a relatively quiet month for sea migrant arrivals, with about 12,600 compared to 23,500 during August 2015, IOM data showed.
Flavio di Giacomo, the Italy spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that despite this week’s high numbers, the profile of departures from Libya remained similar to previous year with regular spikes in numbers attributable to favorable weather conditions.
On Sunday more than 1,100 refugees were rescued in the same area, though August has been slightly less busy than years past.
“It is only by treating the hundreds of thousands like the deserving individuals they are that dignified and humanitarian solutions can truly be reached”, MOAS said.
The rescuers helped more than 40 rubber and wooden boats on Monday.
Thousands of migrants have been rescued off the coast of Libya in just 24 hours.
The Italian coast guard reportedly said the rescued migrants are being taken to ports in Calabria and Sicily.
An estimated 2,726 people have died over the same period, according to the International Organisation for Migration. And Di Giacomo stresses that it is hard to repatriate people who arrive without official documents from their home country, as numerous people rescued this week do.
Rights groups and experts estimate there are about 3,500 migrants held in roughly 20 official detention facilities across Libya.
“It is very unlikely many of these people will be involuntarily sent back to their country of origin”, he says.
The Mediterranean crossings have not stopped, despite it being a unsafe route.
But the conflict-ridden country remains one of the main staging points for people hoping to reach Europe.
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Antonia Zemp, a medical coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, which took part in the rescue said the babies were born a month early and that one was vomiting, had hypothermia and was non-responsive.
