More than 6,000 migrants fleeing Libya rescued at sea

The Italian coast guard says on Monday it rescued roughly 6,500 migrants off the coast of Libya.

The migrants, most from Eritrea and Somalia, were in overcrowded and poorly built vessels that had enough fuel to make it 12 miles off the coast of the Libyan town of Sabratha, The Associated Press reports. There, rescue boats from Italy, the EU border agency Frontex, Doctors Without Borders, and Proactiva Open Arms were waiting for them, the BBC says. The coast guard said more than 1,100 migrants were rescued from the same area on Sunday.

Because of Balkan nations closing their borders to migrants and an EU deal with Turkey to prevent refugees from crossing to Greece, there are fewer people making it to Europe from Syria. There are still plenty of migrants from African countries like Nigeria, Eritrea, and Somalia trying to get from Libya to Italy, however, with 106,000 people arriving in the country so far this year and 2,726 who died trying, the International Organization for Migration said. The IMO says there are still 275,000 migrants in Libya waiting to make the journey to Italy.

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