Nearly 4,700 migrants were rescued off the coast of Libya on Saturday as they tried to reach Europe but one woman was found dead, Italy's coastguard said.
Tens of thousands of people, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, have tried to cross the Mediterranean this year, often dangerously packed into small vessels unsuitable for the voyage.
The coastguard said in a statement it had co-ordinated 20 rescue operations involving numerous vessels which picked up 4,343 migrants from rubber boats and barges. In one of the inflatable boats a woman’s body was found, the coastguard said, without specifying the possible cause of death.
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Another 335 people were picked up as part of a rescue mission co-ordinated by Greece and were being directed to a port in Italy to disembark.
The rescues were carried out by vessels from the Italian coastguard and navy, humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders, the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a merchant boat, a Croatian vessel under the European Union’s Triton rescue mission and naval ships from Germany and Britain under the EU’s EUNAVFOR Med mission.
Europe is struggling to cope with a record influx of refugees as people flee war in countries such as Syria, and the Mediterranean has become the world‘s most deadly crossing point for migrants.
Earlier, Hungary accused Croatia of letting it and the European Union down by failing to stem the flow of people entering the bloc amid deepening discord in Europe over the biggest westwards migration in decades.
Speaking at a press conference in south-western Hungary, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Croatia was violating its legal commitment to defend the EU’s frontiers.
“Croatia has let down not just Hungary but the EU and has given up on all legal commitments that bind it,” he said.
Croatia earlier said it had “forced” Hungary to take in thousands of migrants and would continue sending them to its northern neighbour. Some 8,000 migrants had arrived from Hungary’s south-western neighbour on Friday, senior security adviser Gyorgy Bakondi said at the same press conference. They added to the more than 200,000 migrants who had entered the country since January.
The migrants in Croatia are attempting to circumvent a barbed-wire fence along Hungary's border with Serbia. Mr Bakondi said work had started on constructing a similar fence along the Croatian section of the frontier, though the marshy terrain made the work more difficult. Mr Bakondi said he did not expect the migrant flow from Croatia to slow in coming days.
Earlier on Saturday, Hungary said it was summoning some 500 reservists to cover for soldiers who had already been deployed to the country’s porous southern frontier.
Girl (5) dies in Greece
Meanwhile the Greek coast guard said they failed to save a five-year-old girl found in the sea off the island of Lesbos after the boat she travelled on sank, also leaving 14 others missing.
Thousands enter Austria
Elsewhere thousands of people have entered Austria, seeking refuge after shuttling for days between bordering countries that were unable or unwilling to offer them shelter.
Austrian police said some 6,700 people travelled to the central European country from Hungary after being trapped on Friday in a vicious tug-of-war as bickering European governments shut border crossings, blocked bridges and erected new barbed-wire fences in a bid to shut down the flow.