More than 6,000 migrants plucked from sea in a single day, 22 dead

About 6,055 migrants were rescued and 22 found dead on the perilous sea route to Europe on Oct. 3, one of the highest numbers in a single day, Italian and Libyan officials said. 

The Italian Coast Guard said at least nine migrants had died and a pregnant woman and a child had been taken by helicopter to a hospital on the Italian island of Lampedusa, halfway between Sicily and the Libyan coast, Reuters reported. 

Libyan officials said 11 migrant bodies had washed up on a beach east of the capital, Tripoli, and another two migrants had died when a boat sank off the western city of Sabratha. 

One Italian Coast Guard ship rescued about 725 migrants on a single rubber boat, one of some 20 rescue operations during the day. 

About 10 ships from the coast guard, the navy and humanitarian organizations were involved in the rescues, most of which took place some 30 miles off the coast of Libya. 

Libyan naval and coast guard patrols intercepted three separate boats carrying more than 450 migrants, officials said. 

Just under 200 minors were among those saved from one of the former fishing boats which had some 720 people on board, according to NGO SOS Mediterranee.

Most of the minors were unaccompanied and nine were under five years old. At least 10 of the 191 women on board were pregnant.

Two women and a child had to be evacuated for medical treatment after suffering severe burns caused by spilled fuel during a rescue from a rubber dinghy by a boat operated by the Doctors without Borders (MSF) charity.

A young pregnant woman died from her burns after being rescued during a second operation by the MSF boat dignity, the charity said.

"It is unacceptable that in 2016 these people have no...