MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - The Italian Navy ship San Giusto arrived in Italy’s southern city of Reggio Calabria carrying 1,700 rescued migrants, ANSAmed reported.
Another 2,700 migrants were rescued last weekend as migrants continued to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.
Most migrants are from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, but some are from across Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The spike is a result of traffickers taking advantage of the calm summer seas, AFP reported.
Migrants were rescued as part of Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation, a large-scale naval deployment launched in response to twin shipwrecks in October which left more than 400 migrants dead. Since this weekend, 2,053 migrants have been rescued.
So far this year nearly 100,000 migrants have landed in Italy from North Africa, a jump from the previous record of about 60,000 migrants arriving in 2011 during the Arab Spring revolutions.
According to figures released at the end of July, some 93,000 migrants have been rescued since the beginning of 2014.
