Information from that institution, published Wednesday on the website of the specialized news media Report Difesa, says that after a sighting by an air patrol of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), 590 migrants were rescued by Italian coastguards.
The operation took place some 52 miles east of the coastal town of Crotone, in the east of the southern region of Calabria, and was carried out by Coast Guard personnel from the Calabrian municipalities of Roccella Ionica and Catania, who subsequently assisted a second boat with 650 people on board.
In addition to two Coast Guard patrol boats and the Frontex vessel MAI 1107, in the last rescue, a merchant ship sailing in the area, participated, as well, according to the report.
The rescues took place a short distance off the coast of the Calabrian town of Cutro, where 94 migrants died on February 26th after the boat in which they were traveling, coming from Türkiye, was shipwrecked.
The Italian Public Prosecutor’s Office is continuing its investigations to determine possible failures in the warning and assistance system that contributed to this tragic event.
Irregular migrants coming by sea to Europe arrive mostly in the waters of the central Mediterranean from Libya and Tunisia, in North Africa, although there is a growing number of those who use the Ionian Sea route, from the Turkish coasts, which is longer and more dangerous, where the presence of humanitarian ships usually are not available.
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