Some 245 migrants landed at Lampedusa in Italy Sunday after being rescued Saturday night by three tax police launches and a Frontex vessel from a 20-metre fishing boat that had left Zuara in Libya and was at risk of capsizing in heavy seas.
The migrants said they were from Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh and that they had paid smugglers 2-5,000 euros a head to make the crossing.
Later in the day some 241 migrants were moved from the hotspot on Lampedusa to a reception facility at Porto Empedocle in Sicily, leaving just 10 migrants, all minors, in the Lampedusa hotspot. (ANSA).