Hundreds of new migrant arrivals to Italy, six bodies recovered from 2015 shipwreck

Hundreds of new migrant and refugee arrivals were registered in Italy on Monday, officials said.

At least 1,140 people were saved during eight rescue operations carried out on Monday in the Strait of Sicily, a spokesman from the Italian coast guard told Xinhua.

Some 400 migrants were rescued by a coast guard vessel in the first two separate operations, and another 620 people were later brought to safety by two Italian ships and an Irish vessel, according to the official.

An Italian navy ship assisted 120 people who were sailing on board a dinghy off the coast of Libya.

All migrants were brought to Sicily in southern Italy, to receive first aid and later be brought to reception centers.

Further distress calls were received by the coast guard late on Monday but involved a much lower number of people compared to the last two days, the coast guard spokesman said.

About 3,500 people were saved during the weekend when trying to make the perilous journey from Africa to Italy across the Central Mediterranean Sea route.

They were rescued in 27 separate operations involving Italian vessels, along with other naval forces from the European Union (EU) borders agency Frontex and humanitarian groups, the coast guard said.

Besides rescuing migrants, Italy also recovered bodies from past sea tragedies in the past few days.

The bodies of six migrants recovered between June 23 and 24 were brought to Palermo in Sicily by the navy on Monday.

The migrants had died in a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily on August 5, 2015, the navy said.

At the time of the incident, an Irish vessel rescued some 373 people and found 26 bodies.

Prosecutors in Palermo later entrusted the navy with locating the ship, in order to possibly recover any more victims. The wreck was discovered 60 meters below sea level in December 2015.

Some 10 bodies were detected during inspections inside and around the sunken boat, but only six of them were retrieved due to safety reasons, the navy said.

To date, some 64,056 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy this year by sea, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR stated.

About 16,000 arrivals were registered in June alone. The figure was high, yet it marked a decrease compared to the 22,000 people registered in the same month in 2015.

Most of them headed towards other countries in northern Europe.

Syrian people made up 46.7 percent of all arrivals registered in Italy, Spain, and Greece between January and March 2016, the UNHCR also said.

Among other top nationalities of Mediterranean arrivals were people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, and Pakistan. Endit