Migrants rescued from boats in Mediterranean arrive in Italy

Around 214 migrants who were rescued from boats in the Mediterranean arrived in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo on Monday evening.

The migrants, including 64 children, were taken to land on board the French rescue vesselJean-FrancoisDeniau.

They could be seen disembarking the ship in small groups and going through standard health checks and identification procedures in port before boarding coaches that were to take them to holdingcentres.

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Save the Children representatives at the port said their nationalities were Ethiopian, Sudanese, Somalian, Cameroonian, Egyptian, Yemeni and Eritrean. Their boats were believed to have left from Egypt.

The presumed boat operators were singled out from the other migrants and made to sit on the port side. Further investigations will be carried out to confirm whether they had been paid to ferry their human cargo across the sea.

Officials unable to confirm deaths

Meanwhile, Egyptian, Italian and Greek officials were unable to confirm a BBC report on Monday that up to 400 people, most of them Somali, had capsized near the Egyptian coast after setting off for Italy in boats.

Officials in Egypt did not immediately respond to inquiries, and Italy's coast guard, which co-ordinates all rescues in the waters between Italy and Libya, said it had no information about a shipwreck. It did, however, say that six bodies had been recovered on Sunday and 108 migrants rescued from a semi-submerged rubber dinghy.

The Greek coast guard also said it had no news of a fresh tragedy, and the Somali ambassador to Egypt, cited by the BBC, could not be immediately reached.

Exactly one year ago, an estimated 800 migrants drowned off the Libyan coast when the fishing boat they were travelling in collided with a mercantile vessel that was attempting to rescue them the most deadly Mediterranean shipwreck in decades.

Italy says it appears that hundreds of refugees have drowned after a boat they were travelling in capsized in the Mediterranean Sea Monday.

BBC News is reporting that up to 400 people, most of them refugees from Somalia, have possibly died after the boat they were in capsized after setting off for Italy.