http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/724673/Thousands-migrants-Italy-rescue-Libyan-coast
Thousands of migrants taken to Italy after EU coastguard rescues them from Libyan coast
THOUSANDS of migrants were rescued just off the Libyan coast and taken to Italy over the weekend.
By ALIX CULBERTSON
PUBLISHED: 00:00, Mon, Oct 24, 2016 | UPDATED: 17:32, Mon, Oct 24, 2016
About 5,900 migrants were saved and 17 bodies were pulled from the water by authorities from Frontex, the EU's border and coast guard agency, the Italian coastguard and NGOs.
Shocking images showed wooden coffins being carried off the Siem Pilot, a Norwegian vessel deployed by Frontex, onto the dock in Palermo, southern Italy this morning.
The ship took aboard 1,099 people during several rescue operations over the weekend, making it the highest number of people ever rescued by the boat since it joined Frontex-coordinated Operation Triton in June 2015.
On Sunday morning the number rose to 1,100 after one of the rescued migrants gave birth to a baby boy.
After initially rescuing several groups of migrants, the Siem Pilot was near full capacity when its crew spotted more rubber boats with migrants in nearby.
During the rescue operation, 24 migrants jumped into the water in a bid to swim towards Siem Pilot, whose crew threw them life jackets.
Commander Pal Erik Teigen said: "The dramatic rescue operations over the last couple of days tested our crew as never before.
"They acted with utmost professionalism as they tolled for long hours in the middle of the night to rescue hundreds of people in need.
"It was important to stop more migrants from jumping into the water. This would have been very dangerous.
"We managed to pull everybody out and transfer them safely to a nearby tanker Okyroe. Thankfully nobody died during this rescue operation."
The Norwegian crew handed out 900 portions of food and water to the oil tanker which was not prepared to take on such a high number of migrants.
And other motorboats carried migrants from several different ships in the area throughout the night to Okyroe.
Spanish offshore patrol vessel Rio Seguro, also part of Operation Triton, rescued 564 migrants over the weekend.
Siem Pilot reached Palermo on Monday morning with the rescued migrants and the 17 dead bodies which had been recovered from NGO vessels Sea Watch 2 and Dignity 1, as well as two rubber boats.
The rescue operation came as the European Union (EU) announced it would go ahead with training the Libyan coastguard this week, despite a coast guard vessel allegedly attacking a boat carrying migrants, causing four of them to drown.
German humanitarian group Sea-Watch recovered the bodies, which were part of the 17 brought to Palermo today, after an attack on Friday which its members say was carried out by a vessel with the markings of the Libyan coast guard.
Sea-Watch, one of several humanitarian groups operating rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, estimated some 150 were on the rubber boat before a Libyan coast guard vessel swooped in and prevented the Sea-Watch vessel from rescuing the migrants.
Then at least one Libyan man boarded the rubber boat and beat the migrants with sticks, sparking a panic that caused many to fall into the sea, Sea-Watch said.
The Libyan vessel then left the area, leaving Sea-Watch to conduct the rescue. Although four bodies were recovered, the Sea-Watch crew said it saw others it could not retrieve.
Antonello De Renzis Sonnino, spokesman for the EU's Operation Sophia, said: "The aim was to start the training this week, and this week it will start.
A spokesman for the Libyan naval forces in Tripoli denied it had attacked the grant boat but admitted it boarded the rubber dinghy.
Helped by Libya-based people smugglers, some 150,000 people have set off for Italy in unseaworthy boats so far this year.
More than 3,100 have died or disappeared during the crossing, making the Central Mediterranean the world's most dangerous border for migrants.
Migrant rescues are often complicated in Libya, where the UN-backed Tripoli government is struggling to impose its authority.
To help stem the flow of migrants, the EU agreed earlier this year to train the Libyan coast guard, which currently lacks the personnel and equipment to patrol over 1,056 miles (1,700 km) of coastline.
Beginning with up to 100 people this week, the EU aims to train around 1,000 Libyan coast guard members in total.
A government source in Italy, one of the countries participating in the training, said: "If anything, last week's incident shows that there's a need for more training and there's a need for it soon."
A Palermo court has opened an investigation into the incident, prosecutor Maurizio Scalia said.
Received on Mon Oct 24 2016 - 13:22:50 EDT