ROME: The Italian Coast Guard on Monday rescued dozens of migrants who were stranded overnight on an uninhabited isle south of Sicily, Italian state TV said.
Coast guard helicopters made five trips to transfer the migrants from Lampione, a flat-topped, rocky islet, to the airport on Lampedusa, another Italian island in the same southern Mediterranean archipelago, the TV report said.
Corriere della Sera newspaper said a pregnant woman was among the migrants.
Strong winds and high waves had reportedly thwarted repeated attempts by coast guard vessels to evacuate the migrants from Lampione. Earlier in the day, helicopters had dropped food and blankets on 200-meter (220-yard) long Lampione to aid the migrants until rescue, Corriere said on its website.
It wasn’t clear if the migrants’ boat had either capsized nearby or if human smugglers abandoned them on the isle and then sailed away.
Coast guard officials weren’t immediately available to confirm the reports.
Separately, the humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee said in a tweet Monday that its charity boat Ocean Viking had been cleared by Italian authorities to disembark 92 rescued migrants in the port of Salerno, near Naples. The migrants had been rescued from their deflating rubber dinghy by Ocean Viking crew on Saturday in international waters off Libya. About half of those rescued were unaccompanied migrants, SOS Mediterranee said.
Coast guard helicopters made five trips to transfer the migrants from Lampione, a flat-topped, rocky islet, to the airport on Lampedusa, another Italian island in the same southern Mediterranean archipelago, the TV report said.
Corriere della Sera newspaper said a pregnant woman was among the migrants.
Strong winds and high waves had reportedly thwarted repeated attempts by coast guard vessels to evacuate the migrants from Lampione. Earlier in the day, helicopters had dropped food and blankets on 200-meter (220-yard) long Lampione to aid the migrants until rescue, Corriere said on its website.
It wasn’t clear if the migrants’ boat had either capsized nearby or if human smugglers abandoned them on the isle and then sailed away.
Coast guard officials weren’t immediately available to confirm the reports.
Separately, the humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee said in a tweet Monday that its charity boat Ocean Viking had been cleared by Italian authorities to disembark 92 rescued migrants in the port of Salerno, near Naples. The migrants had been rescued from their deflating rubber dinghy by Ocean Viking crew on Saturday in international waters off Libya. About half of those rescued were unaccompanied migrants, SOS Mediterranee said.