(AhlulBayt News Agency) - About 6,500 asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in a coordinated effort, the Italian coastguard says, in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years.
Dramatic images showed asylum seekers wearing life jackets jumping off one of their boats into the Mediterranean and swimming toward rescuers on Monday (local time).
"The command centre coordinated 40 rescue operations" that included vessels from Italy, humanitarian organisations, as well as the EU's border agency Frontex, and "saved 6,500 migrants", the coastguard wrote on Twitter.
On Sunday, more than 1,100 asylum seekers were rescued in the same area, though August has been slightly less busy than years past.
The total number of arrivals in Italy this year, prior to Monday's rescues, was at about 105,000, according to the UN refugee agency.
An estimated 2,726 men, women and children have died over the same period trying to make the journey, often dangerously packed into small vessels unsuitable for the voyage.
Italy has been on the front line of Europe's asylum seeker crisis for three years, and more than 400,000 have successfully made the voyage to Italy from North Africa since the beginning of 2014, fleeing violence and poverty.
More than 3,000 asylum seekers have died at sea while trying to reach either Greece or Italy since the start of this year, an increase of some 50 per cent on the same period in 2015.
About 6,500 asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in a coordinated effort, the Italian coastguard says, in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years. (AhlulBayt News Agency) - About 6,500 asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in a coordinated effort, the Italian coastguard says, in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years.
About 6,500 asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in a coordinated effort, the Italian coastguard says, in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years.
source : abna24
