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1st LD: 10 dead as boat carrying migrants sinks off Italy

Xinhua, March 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Ten illegal migrants have drowned at sea while attempting to reach Italy's southern coast across the Mediterranean, Italian Coastal Guard said on Wednesday.

The coastal guard on Tuesday rescued a total of 941 migrants aboard five motorized dinghies and two larger vessels south of Sicily island, but one of the boats capsized with 10 victims recovered in the sea.

Over less than 24 hours, the Italian Coastal Guard coordinated seven rescue operations in an area some 50 miles (around 80.5 km) north of Libya, the Coastal Guard said in a statement.

Three merchant ships and a navy vessel Triton, coordinated by the EU border agency Frontex, which replaced Italy's full-scale search-and-rescue program Mare Nostrum in November, also took part in the rescue operations, the statement added.

The rescued migrants said they were Syrian, Palestinian, Tunisian, Libyan and Sub-Saharan nationals, according to the statement. Among them were more than 30 children and 50 women. A pregnant woman was rushed to a hospital.

Over 218,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean by irregular routes last year and about 3,500 others died in their attempts, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which has urged Italian and the EU authorities to step up their search and rescue capacity. Endi