Scores of bodies found on Libyan boat

Calm weather has encouraged the smugglers to get as many people as possible out to sea, they will be picked up by Italian boats.

Another 3,000 men, women and children were rescued in multiple operations off the Libyan coast Wednesday, the coast guard said.

The Italian navy on August 15 had rescued some 312 migrants crammed in a boat off coast from Libya, later 52 people had been found dead by the navy, reportedly killed by the fuel fumes and lack of air.

HMS Enterprise was part of a task force which saved 4,400 desperate migrants on board more than 20 Europe-bound boats off the Libyan coast.

“We have recovered 30 bodies so far and rescued dozens of people, with dozens more still missing after a boat carrying around 200 migrants sank off (the western port of) Zuwara”, a coast guard official told AFP. He said the victims probably died of asphyxiation.

But at least 2,300 are believed to have died while trying to make the crossing. The figure doesn’t include those who arrive at the islands themselves from the nearby Turkish coast, usually in inflatable dinghies.

As tens of thousands of migrants flee war and poverty attempt to reach safety in Europe, skirmishes broke out along the Serbian-Hungarian border.

Hungarian police on Wednesday used tear gas to quell disturbances among the crowds of migrants waiting to be registered at the Roszke border crossing.

Since the start of the year, more than 107,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores, while another 157,000 have made their way across the water to Greece, according to the Geneva-based global Organisation for Migration (IOM).

To stop refugees and migrants entering, Hungary’s right-wing government is constructing a massive, 109-mile fence on its border with Serbia.

Every day features new reports of the latest harrowing tragedy engulfing refugees in the Mediterranean.