A boat with 295 people on board was intercepted in international waters off the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria on Thursday morning. The migrants were put on patrol boats and taken to safety. In the afternoon, the Coast Guard rescued about 450 more people from another boat, which was also in distress. That rescue operation took place about 100 nautical miles east of the Sicilian city of Syracuse.
In Italy, discussions have been going on for weeks about the arrival of thousands of migrants, who cross the Mediterranean from Africa in usually unseaworthy boats. According to official figures, the country has already registered more than 20,000 boat migrants since the beginning of January. In the two previous years, around this time of year, it was about 6,000 people.
Several attempts to cross the Mediterranean have resulted in accidents with many fatalities. At least 89 migrants were killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Calabria at the end of February.