500 migrants rescued in Med on one day

The Italian Coast Guard announced that around 5,000 refugees were rescued in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday.

The Italian coast guard apprehends a group of refugees off of the Libyan coast.

They said they spotted around two dozen migrant boats about 20 nautical miles from the Libyan port city of Sabratha.

Aboard rafts, barges, and small boats, the migrants were attempting to make the perilous crossing of the Strait of Sicily from Libya and other North African countries to Sicily. “The mass movement is probably the result of week-long, unfavourable weather conditions” that have come to an end, MOAS said on Twitter.

The Topaz Responder picked up 382 sub-Saharan African migrants from three different large rubber boats.

According to figures released by the United Nations, more than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in overcrowded and unseaworthy boats since 2014.

The coast guard confirmed that at least one dead body was found on the rafts.

But arrivals to Italy continue at about the same clip as previous year, and the deadly central Mediterranean route has already claimed 2,438 lives, IOM said.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Turkey-EU migrant deal aimed at stopping migrants from entering Greece resulted in a 98% decrease in migrant inflow over the past year, but the influx into Italy has remained the same despite risks to migrants travelling through the risky Mediterranean route.

Ships belonging to Doctors without Borders, Migrant Offshore Aid Station, Italy’s navy, the EU’s border agency Frontex, and the bloc’s anti-people-smuggling mission Sophia, all helped take the migrants off nine boats on Friday.