14 Italy-bound migrants found dead, 5,700 rescued

Paramedics prepare to lift an ill migrant on a stretcher into a waiting ambulance after she arrived by an Italian military helicopter at St Luke’s Hospital in Gwardamangia, outside Valletta. Photo: REUTERS

Fourteen bodies have been recovered and about 5,700 people have been saved in Mediterranean Sea migrant rescues during the past 48 hours, according to the Italian coastguard.

Some 463 migrants and the body of a pregnant woman in her mid-20s arrived in the port of Naples early on Sunday, the ANSA news agency said, quoting local Interior Ministry official Gerarda Pantalone.

In Sicily, a total of almost 3,300 migrants were due to be disembarked in five different ports during the next 24 hours, ANSA said.

Seven bodies were also due to be disembarked, it added.

The coastguard said late Saturday that it coordinated 20 rescue operations on the day, which intercepted about 2,400 people.

A day earlier, it reported 24 missions at sea that picked up about 3,300 people.

Seven of the dead were recovered on Friday, and another seven on Saturday, according to the two statements.

Italy is the main landing point for Europe-bound migrants.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), it recorded 146,381 landings in the year to date; the IOM also estimates that 3,654 migrants died or went missing in this year’s Mediterranean crossings.

Amid a looming row with the European Commission about a breach of deficit targets to fund domestic spending on migrants and post-earthquake reconstruction, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi repeated complaints of insufficient solidarity from European Union partners.

“We cannot go on like this, we need a radical solution,” he said on a Saturday visit to Sicily.

Renzi insisted on proposals to penalize Eastern European countries that refuse to take in refugees with cuts in EU funding.