Over 900 migrants rescued at sea, one dead, Italy says
More than 900 migrants were rescued in one day from three overcrowded boats en route to Europe from North Africa, an Italian coast guard official said Thursday. One body was recovered, Reuters reports.
All the rescues were carried out Wednesday, the official said, with no details about the one death or the migrants' nationalities. No boats had yet been spotted on Thursday as sea conditions worsened, he said.
With Libya engulfed in strife, people smugglers are increasingly free to pack migrants onto unsafe boats, and they are expected to push total arrivals in Italy for 2015 to 200,000, an increase of 30,000 on last year, according to an Interior Ministry projection.