19 bodies found as 3,500 boat migrants rescued

Italy’s maritime search and rescue service has saved 3,500 migrants and found 19 corpses in the Mediterranean since Friday as thousands attempted to cross to Europe by boat over the weekend, the Italian navy said.

Calmer summer seas have led more people to make the perilous crossing this year from North Africa, where a breakdown of order in Libya has been exploited by human traffickers, pushing the number of arrivals into Italy since January past 100,000.

The Italian ship Sirio recovered 18 corpses and 73 survivors from a raft, the navy said on Twitter yesterday, after a frigate picked up one corpse along with 1,372 survivors on Friday night.