Fourteen bodies have been recovered and about 6,100 people have been saved in migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend, the Italian coastguard said yesterday.
Vessels run by German non-governmental organisations (NGO) Jugend Rettet and Lifeboat Project, as well as the coastguard and the EU border agency Frontex, contributed to four rescue missions yesterday that saved 400 people, a statement said.
Earlier, the coastguard said it had co-ordinated 20 operations on Saturday, which intercepted about 2,400 survivors and retrieved seven bodies, and 24 missions at sea on Friday, which picked up about 3,300 people and another seven dead migrants.
Some 463 migrants and the body of a pregnant woman in her mid-20s arrived in the port of Naples early yesterday, the Ansa news agency said, quoting local interior ministry official Gerarda Pantalone.
In Sicily, a total of almost 3,300 migrants were due to disembark in five different ports over the next 24 hours, Ansa said.
Seven bodies were also due to be returned, it added.
Also taking part in the rescues, the German navy saved 844 people in a number of actions, their operations command reported yesterday.
They are to be brought to an Italian harbour aboard the naval support ship Werra.
The German military has since 2015 been part of Operation Sophia, an international operation aimed at combatting refugee smuggling in the Mediterranean.
Italy is the main landing point for Europe-bound migrants.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has 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 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,” the prime minister said on a Saturday visit to Sicily.
Renzi insisted on proposals to cut EU funding to Eastern European countries that refuse to take in refugees.