Over 40 migrants saved off southern Italy

Lecce, 9 June (IANS/AKI) Italian coastguard said they rescued 43 migrants including 11 children from a yacht that was listing in rough seas off the southern Puglia region on Thursday.

Coastguard responded to an SOS sent by the nine-metre yacht and intercepted the vessel some 10 miles off the coastal town of Santa Maria di Leuca.

The migrants - starting with the 11 traumatised children - were transferred from the yacht to a coastguard vessel and taken to Santa Maria di Leuca's port for health checks and identification, coastguard said. Italian police are investigating the crossing.

Early on Thursday, police picked up 36 migrants including a dozen children on a road near the coastal town of Vieste on Puglia's Gargano peninsula.

Police said they believed the migrants had just landed. They told officers they were from Syria, police said.

The great majority (85 percent) of the 71,418 migrants who reached Europe this year through 4 June arrived in

Italy, amid a surge in crossings from Libya, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

--IANS

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