A flotilla of ships saved 668 migrants on Saturday from smugglers’ boats in distress in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, Italian authorities said bringing the week’s total of migrants rescued from the sea to a staggering 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 12-m-long rubber dinghy and recovered a male body. A German ship patrolling to intercept smugglers’ boats also was involved in four separate 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, bringing 135 survivors and 45 bodies from a rescue a day earlier. The Vega was due to dock on Sunday.
‘Migrants aren’t a danger’At the Vatican on Saturday, Pope Francis told several hundred children, among them many migrants, who came 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 the vest was used by a Syrian girl who died while trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos.
Among those in the audience was a Nigerian youth who lost his parents in 2014 as the family tried to reach Italy by sea.
The Pope has repeatedly expressed dismay that 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. — AP
