4,400 Migrants Rescued Off Libya In 48 Hours Break Italy's Migrant Record

Italy's coastguard announced Monday that it had coordinated the rescue of 4,400 migrants on Sunday and Monday, during several operations off the coast of Libya.

According to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (OIM), the latest rescue operations have pushed up the number of migrants arriving in Italy since the start of 2015 to a record 69,000, compared to 63,885 in the first half of 2014.

Italian, British, Irish, Swedish, and Spanish vessels took part in Sunday's rescue operations, as well as two other ships operated by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières — MSF) and Malta-based humanitarian organization Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). Some 2,900 migrants were rescued from 21 boats off the Libyan coast, and taken to ports in Sicily and southern Italy. A further 1,500 migrants were rescued Monday from eight boats. The Italian coastguard has released footage of Sunday's rescue operation.

The Italian navy announced Monday that it had begun efforts to recover the bodies of 800 migrants who died when their ship capsized in the Mediterranean on April 18. The tragedy — one of the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant disasters — prompted the EU to expand sea rescue operations and to revisit the idea of a quota system for relocating migrants across Europe.

— Marina Militare (@ItalianNavy)June 29, 2015

"At the request of Palazzo Chigi [the seat of the Italian government] the Italian navy has begun efforts to recover the bodies [scattered] around the ship that sank on April 18."

Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pledged last month to recover the bodies as well as the ship, which capsized about 85 nautical miles north off the Libyan coast, sinking to a depth of around 370 meters. Renzi repeated his committment to lifting the wreck from the sea bed, in order for "the whole world (to) see what happened." Last month, Renzi had announced plans to bring the wreck to the surface, saying that Italy could not "bury its conscience 380 meters under the sea."

"We will bring this boat to the surface and we will give a grave to these men and to these women, to these sisters and these brothers," the prime minister said in May.

Last week, Renzi argued with EU leaders at a summit in Brussels after they failed to agree on a plan to relocate 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece.

"If this is your idea of Europe, you can keep it," Renzi told fellow EU leaders. "Either there's solidarity or don't waste our time."

 The EU finally agreed to relocate 60,000 migrants on a voluntary basis — meaning there will be no mandatory quotas and countries can choose to opt out of the scheme. EU leaders will have until the end of July to agree on how to relocate migrants.

UK Says Europe's Plan to Resettle Migrants Will Push More People to Cross the Mediterranean

Migrants who enter the EU in Italy often seek to reach other European destinations such as Germany, the UK, or Sweden, but are denied entry at the border.

Last month, 200 migrants were left stranded in the Italian town of Ventimiglia on the France-Italy border after French police refused to let them in. Migrant advocacy groups have argued that border checks on the France-Italy border are illegal and violate the Schengen agreement — a treaty that allows the free movement of people within the area covered by signatory countries. But in a statement released Monday, France's leading administrative court ruled that the border checks were not unlawful, and "not equivalent to the implementation of a permanent and systematic control at the French-Italian border."

France and Italy Can't Seem to Agree on What to Do About the Immigration Crisis

According to the IOM, 1,800 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya since the start of 2015. The agency also reported that 27 people had perished crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece — a route which has become more and more popular in recent months. According to European border control agency Frontex, the number of migrants trying to reach Greece via Turkey, instead of attempting the perilous crossing from Libya to Italy, has increased by 500 percent since last year.

More than 80,000 migrants have landed in Greece since the start of 2015 — 11,000 more than in Italy — and many Greek islands are struggling to cope with the influx of refugees.

Follow Pierre Longeray on Twitter @PLongeray 

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