Image: Migrants wait to disembark from the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship Phoenix after it arrived with migrants and a corpse on board, in Catania on the island of Sicily, Italy, May 6, 2017.
MILAN (Reuters) – Around 3,000 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean on Saturday as they tried to reach Europe, Italy’s coast guard said in a statement.
The people were picked up in more than 20 separate rescue operations involving the Italian coast guard and navy, the EU’s EUNAVFOR mission in the Mediterranean, European Union border agency Frontex, NGOs and merchant ships.
The coast guard gave no details of the nationalities of those rescued.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, so far this year 43,490 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea as of April 26. More than 1,000 have died or are missing.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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