Italian authorities rescue 57 migrants off Lampedusa island

Fifty-seven migrants were rescued by Italian customspolice and the coastguard and taken to the island of Lampedusa, theANSA news agency reported.  The migrants were on a boat intercepted off Lampione, an uninhabitedislet off Lampedusa. They were picked up and taken to Lampedusa lateon Saturday.  According to ANSA, there was a pregnant woman and a boy sufferingfrom an apparent nervous breakdown among them. He was visited bydoctors before joining the other migrants in a reception centre.ANSA said the migrants are likely to be Tunisians.Italy's hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini claims credit for adrastic drop in migrant arrivals to Italy, linking it to his effortsto block the work of migrant rescue charities.Most sea migrants reach Italy without the help of charities.Matteo Villa, a migration researcher at the ISPI think tank, hascalculated that only 8 per cent of the 3,073 migrants who landed inItaly in the January 1-July 8 period were rescued by charity ships.