Lampedusa e Linosa

An Italian navy ship has set sail for Albania carrying a second small group of migrants, with Rome looking to salvage a controversial plan to process asylum seekers abroad after a first attempt hit legal hurdles.

Rescuers searched the Mediterranean Sea near Greece's southernmost island Thursday for two people reported missing when a boat carrying 100 migrants sank the previous day, Greece's Coast Guard said.

An Italian navy ship has docked at the Albanian port of Shengjin to bring the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters to be processed there.

The naval ship Libra left the port of Lampedusa on Monday with 16 men - 10 from Bangladesh and six from Egypt - who were rescued at sea after departing from Libya, a ministry spokesperson said.

Italy is taking a first group of migrants to Albania aboard a navy ship, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Monday, activating a controversial plan to process thousands of asylum-seekers abroad.

A total of 296 migrants and refugees arrived on the island of Lampedusa last night.

Meanwhile, during the previous day, 487 people arrived on this small island south of Sicily.

Italy's coastguard said Wednesday it had recovered six bodies after a migrant boat sank this week off the southern coast with more than 60 people reported missing, including many children.

Twelve people were rescued after the sailing boat sank around 120 nautical miles off the coast of Calabria overnight Sunday-Monday, although one of them died after disembarking.

Over 1,000 unmarked graves have been found along migrant routes in the EU, the Guardian writes.

The number of migrants arriving in Spain's Canary Islands so far this year has passed the record number set during all of 2006, official figures showed Thursday.

Forty-one people are believed dead after a migrant boat capsized off Tunisia, Italian state RAI television reported, citing four survivors who were rescued and brought to land Wednesday.

Nine men charged over the worst shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea this year that killed at least 82 people were detained pending trial, the coastguard said on Wednesday, while the European Union promised more funds and actions on migration.