668 more saved at sea; 13,000 rescued in week

Rescuers help migrants board the Italian navy ship Vega after the boat they were on sank Friday in the Mediterranean Sea. The Italian navy said it rescued 135 migrants and recovered 45 bodies from the sea.
Rescuers help migrants board the Italian navy ship Vega after the boat they were on sank Friday in the Mediterranean Sea. The Italian navy said it rescued 135 migrants and recovered 45 bodies from the sea.

ROME -- A flotilla of ships saved 668 migrants Saturday from smugglers' boats struggling in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, Italian authorities said -- raising last week's total of migrants plucked from the sea to 13,000 people.

The rescues by the Italian coast guard and navy ships, aided by Irish and German vessels and humanitarian groups, are the latest by a multinational patrol south of the Italian island of Sicily.

The Irish military said the vessel Le Roisin saved 123 migrants from a 40-foot rubber dinghy and recovered one body. A German ship patrolling to intercept smugglers' boats also was involved in four rescue operations, the Italian coast guard said Saturday evening.

Meanwhile, with migrant shelters filling up in Sicily, the Italian navy vessel Vega headed toward Reggio Calabria, a southern Italian mainland port, carrying 135 survivors and 45 bodies from a mission a day earlier. The Vega was to dock today.

Other survivors who arrived Saturday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo told authorities that they had seen a fishing boat filled with "hundreds" of migrants sink Thursday, a Save The Children spokesman, Giovanna Di Benedetto, told The Associated Press by telephone from Sicily.

According to survivors, two smugglers' fishing boats and a dinghy set sail Wednesday night from Libya's coast. Di Benedetto said the survivors were among 500 or so aboard the one fishing boat that didn't sink and the dinghy.

"All of this must be verified, of course," said Di Benedetto, but if the survivors' accounts bear out, as many as 400 people could have drowned, with only a few of those on the vessel that sank able to reach the other boats.

Authorities said many migrant boats over the past few years apparently have sunk without a trace in the Mediterranean, with the dead never found. Often the only news about them comes when family members in Africa or Europe tell authorities that their loved ones never arrived after setting sail from Libya.

Under a European Union deal, tens of thousands of those rescued at sea and seeking asylum were supposed to be relocated to other EU nations from Italy and Greece, where most of the migrants have landed. But with resentment building in some European countries about taking in more migrants, the plan never really took off, and only a small percentage of those potential relocations have ever taken place.

Migrant deaths off the coast of Libya in the past few days are exposing the EU's failure to get a grip on the situation, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said Saturday.

In the previous week, there were fewer than 1,700 landings on Italian shores, according to data compiled by the International Organization for Migration.

"All the victims that we are picking up from the sea are the proof of how far and late Europe is in its relations with African nations," Alfano said, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Italy wants the EU to give money to African countries to develop their economies, tighten their border controls, build migrant screening camps on their territories, and take back some migrants.

Alfano called for a "serious agreement to try to contain departures" to be negotiated with Libya.

After the Balkan migration route was closed, Italy became the main entry point for migrants, and warmer weather is expected to encourage more departures.

Saturday at the Vatican, Pope Francis told several hundred children, among them many migrants, who arrived from southern Italy that migrants "aren't a danger, but they are in danger."

The pontiff held a red life vest given to him by a volunteer. He told the children that the vest was used by a Syrian girl who died while trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.

"She's in heaven, she's watching us," Francis said.

Francis has repeatedly expressed dismay that some European nations have refused to accept those fleeing poverty or war and have even thrown up razor-wire fences and other barriers to thwart their arrivals.

In France, an Afghan migrant died after being hit by a truck near the coastal city of Calais.

The Pas-de-Calais region's secretary-general, Marc Del Grande, said the 25-year-old was hit while he and about 50 other migrants were laying branches on the highway to slow traffic, hop on a truck and get to Britain.

Information for this article was contributed by Frances D'Emilio of The Associated Press and by Alvise Armellini of Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

A Section on 05/29/2016

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