Mediterranean migrant crisis: 4-month-old baby among hundreds of fresh arrivals

An Italian navy boat carrying 446 Syrian, Eritrean, Palestinian and Sudanese migrants has arrived in the Sicilian port of Augusta after being rescued in south east of Calabria.

The migrants were travelling on a fishing boat, which allegedly sailed from Alexandria, Egypt.

After eight days, the boat got into trouble and sent an emergency alert. It was rescued by the Nave Bettica of the Italian Navy and then brought to Lampedusa, before reaching its final destination in Augusta.

Among the migrants are 59 children, including a four-month old baby who was given milk after the arrival, according to Save the Children. Syrian families fleeing the civil war were seen disembarking with their children, who still had their school backpacks on.

Two pregnant women and an old Syrian woman, presumably in her seventies, struggled climbing down the navy boat and were helped by volunteers of the Red Cross. All the migrants were brought in the Red Cross tent and then led to the nearby refugee camp.

A Syrian mother interviewed by Save the Children travelled for five months before getting here. She came with three children, aged nine, six and three-and-a-half.

"They sold their possessions and were given a better place on the boat," Sarah Tyler, of Save the Children, said. "We're seeing more and more Syrian families fleeing together that's the new trend."

Syrian families are put on board and Africans are put on the hull because they pay less.

Save the Children expect 2,500 youths to die in the boats by the end of year if the current trend continues. A baby girl was inconsolable because her mother had burns on her hands from her Libya detention and her band kept falling off.

The Syrians said they want to stay in Italy while the Eritreans said they want to travel to Belgium.

Boat 'sailed from Egypt'

International Organization of Migration spokesman Flavio di Giacomo told IBTimes UK the unusual rescue location reveals the boat sailed from Egypt. "The 10% of total sailing are from Egypt. The Egyptian boats are usually more stable and stronger than the Libyan ones, which are made of rotten wood."

However, he said fishing and rubber boats from Libya and Egypt very rarely make it to Italy. "Some of those boats are fixed with tape," he said.

Di Giacomo said another boat with 500 migrants is expected to arrive in Salerno, bringing the total arrivals for 22 April up to 1,000.

Another IOM staffer, Itayi Viriri, told IBTimes UK the unstable political situation in Libya has turned the northern African country has into a "launchpad" for smugglers.

"We need more pro-active coordination with other European countries to rescue more migrants," he said.

More than 200,000 asylum seekers have successfully reached Europe's southern shores over the past 15 months. Another 5,000 are believed to have died trying, of which 1,700 perished in the first four months of 2015 only.

Up to 950 would-be-refugees died in a single incident earlier in April, as their boat crashed into a rescue vessel and capsized off Libya's coast.

In March, the European Union's border agency chief warned up to one million migrants are expected to attempt crossing the Mediterranean from Libya before the end of 2015.