Rescuers examine the body of a migrant at port in Valletta yesterday, a day after a rescue operation at sea. Italian and Maltese rescuers found 29 bodies on the overcrowded migrant boat yesterday.

DPA

Italian and Maltese authorities said yesterday that they had rescued more than 800 migrants from Mediterranean waters, while the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned that hundreds may have died at sea.

The Italian navy said that it picked up 749 people in five different operations on Saturday.

Among those rescued there were 100 women, 61 children and one baby.

The migrants have yet to arrive on Italian shores.

Eighty-three migrants, including two babies, were taken on shore to Malta, after being picked up by a freighter which found their boat in distress, officials said.

In a Twitter message, Maltese Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia complained: “European Union must take action. Malta and Italy cannot be left alone.”

Italy is conducting the bulk of search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean.

It launched the Mare Nostrum patrol mission in October, in the wake of a shipwreck near its island of Lampedusa that left 366 migrants dead.

Rome has said that it can no longer deal with the situation alone and has called on EU border agency Frontex to take over the task of rescuing migrants arriving by sea.

According to the IOM, 5,200 boat migrants landed in Italy between Friday and Saturday, further boosting this year’s record tally.

At least 80,000 are estimated to have arrived since January 1, compared to less than 43,000 all of last year.

In a statement released late on Saturday, the IOM also said that, according to accounts from other migrants, 240 Eritreans who set off from Libya on June 27 have gone missing and may have drowned on the way.

Meanwhile, the number of dead extracted from a migrants’ boat rescued in Maltese waters rose to 29, the Maltese police said yesterday, 11 more than the figure initially feared.

The body of one female was among those sent to the mortuary, the Maltese police said in a statement.

A magisterial inquiry has been ordered and the autopsies are expected to be carried out in the coming days.

The bodies were transported to Malta in the same boat in which they died some 80 miles off Lampedusa early on Saturday.

It took rescuers several hours yesterday to extract the dead from the boat’s lower deck.

Two other victims, including a toddler, were taken to Italy on Saturday, while the survivors were taken to Italy.

 

 

 

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