1st LD Writethru: 17 migrants dead, 217 rescued off Libyan coast by Italian navy: media

The Italian navy has found 17 dead migrants onboard a boat off the Libyan coast and rescued another 217 people from the same wreckage, local reports said late on Friday.

The Italian navy reached the boat after an alert was launched by the migrants with a satellite phone, according to ANSA news agency.

The boat had not capsized and the migrants died for unknown reasons, ANSA said, adding that the survivors will be questioned by Italian police soon to try to ascertain the causes of the accident.

Friday's deaths were the latest of countless migrant tragedies that according to the Refugee Agency of the United Nations (UNHCR) led to around 3,500 Africans losing their lives in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy, seen as a gate to Europe, last year.

Sources from the Italian Interior Ministry have recently said that some 33,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by the beginning of May 2015, or 15 percent more than last year's arrivals in the same period.

This means that as many as 200,000 migrants could land in Italy for 2015 overall, well above last year's 170,000, further aggravating the emergency at the country's overcrowded refugee centers.

The Italian government led by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has repeated called for focused actions in Libya to be carried out at the European level in the framework of international legality to contain the emergency of illegal immigration. Endit