ITALY-MIGRANTS/SURVIVORS Ten migrants die in Mediterranean, over 1,000 rescued

Record ID: 348867

  • Title: ITALY-MIGRANTS/SURVIVORS Ten migrants die in Mediterranean, over 1,000 rescued
  • Date: 4th March 2015
  • Summary: AUGUSTA, SICILY, ITALY (MARCH 4, 2015)(REUTERS) BOAT WITH BLUE FLASHING LIGHTS VARIOUS OF BOAT CARRYING MIGRANTS ARRIVING AT PORT PEOPLE ON DECK VARIOUS OF BOAT CARRYING MIGRANTS ARRIVING AT PORT VARIOUS OF RESCUE WORKERS AND MIGRANTS ON DECK RED CROSS TENT ON QUAYSIDE / BOAT IN PORT VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS ON DECK
  • Embargoed: 19th March 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAC4LQEYJ3STSDL1OYLJ39VS5XD
  • Story Text: At least 10 North African migrants died when their rubber boat overturned in the southern Mediterranean, while more than 1,000 more were rescued from eight other vessels over Tuesday and Wednesday (March 3 & 4), Italian and Tunisian authorities said.
    The Italian coast guard said one of its ships had rescued 121 people after their boat capsized on Tuesday about 50 miles north of Libya. Ten bodies were recovered.
    The bodies were taken to the Sicilian port of Augusta on Wednesday evening, along with 437 migrants who had been rescued at sea.
    Tunisia's navy rescued all 81 migrants on a boat that had started taking on water near the Tunisian island of Djerba on Tuesday night, the country's defence ministry said.
    Between Tunisian and Italian authorities, about 1,100 migrants were brought to safety, including 30 children and 50 women, one of them pregnant.
    Authorities said they were mostly Syrians, Palestinians, Tunisians, Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans.
    The migrants are part of a growing surge of people risking the dangerous journey to flee poverty, civil war in Syria, military conscription in Eritrea, anarchy in Libya and other conflict zones.
    The number of boats arriving in Italy this year is already outpacing a record set in 2014, with 7,882 counted during the first two months of 2015, a 43 percent increase on the same period a year earlier, according to the Interior Ministry.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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