Italian Coast Guard

The search continues at an unrelenting pace for the third day at the site where the luxury yacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Palermo, resulting in the death of one passenger.

The state of emergency will be valid for six months and should first enable the payment of five million euros to particularly affected regions in the south of Italy, it was confirmed to the DPA agency from the office of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome.

The rescue operation of the passengers of the Italian-flagged ferry, Euroferry Olympia, is underway, which - while sailing from Igoumenitsa (Greece) to Brindisi (Italy) - caught fire northeast of the island of Corfu.

There were 237 passengers and 51 crew member on board.

The death toll from the sinking of a migrant ship off the Italian island of Lampedusa has increased to nine, according to the Italian Coast Guard, quoted by the DPA.

The bodies of 26 raped teenage girls from Nigeria were found by the Italian Coast Guard, the BBC reported.

A Turkish container ship has rescued a total of 466 migrants from an old boat which was about to sink off the Libyan coast, Doğan News Agency reported on May 30.

The Roseline A spotted migrants jam-packed on a boat off the Libyan coast while it was heading toward Tunisia.

The Turkish crew immediately embarked 466 migrants, including women and children, on the ship.

At least 34 migrants, most of them toddlers, drowned yesterday, as coastguard boats and other vessels tried to save hundreds of others packed into boats off the coast of Libya, rescuers said.

The Italian Coast Guard and humanitarian ships rescued 1,350 migrants in 12 separate operations in the Mediterranean on April 6 and one person was found dead.

Humanitarian groups operating rescue ships off the coast of Libya picked up more than 700 migrants out of seven flimsy and overcrowded boats on April 5, the Italian Coast Guard said.

Some 970 migrants were rescued off the coast of Libya on March 2, the Italian Coast Guard said, as the numbers attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe continue to rise.

Even before the March 2 arrivals, more than 13,400 people had arrived on Italy's shores so far this year - an increase of 50 to 70 percent compared with 2016 and 2015.