Italy processing 1,416 rescued migrants

(ANSA) - Salerno, August 5 - An Italian Navy vessel has reached the port city of Salerno with 1,416 rescued migrants on board, most of them war refugees, officials said Tuesday.
    The migrants, many of them arriving in entire families, are being processed and will be relocated to reception centers throughout Italy.
    Italian rescuers last month brought another 2,128 migrants from Iraq, Palestine, Somalia and Syria to this city lying close to the Amalfi Coast.
    Meanwhile the Italian coast guard and merchant marine on Monday rescued some 1,000 people off various vessels in distress in the Strait of Sicily. They are expected in the southern city of Reggio Calabria early on Wednesday.
    Italy's Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) search-and-rescue operation has been saving the lives of migrants fleeing war-torn northern and sub-Saharan Africa since October 2013, after 366 men, women and children perished when their unseaworthy boats capsized almost within sight of the coast of Sicily.
    Also on Tuesday, French newspaper Le Figaro dedicated a long article to Mare Nostrum, which it says has saved "more than 93,700 lives" to date and costs Italy nine million euros a month.
    "Italy alone shoulders this burden, with no help from (the European Union in) Brussels" the French paper wrote. French police voiced concern over the large numbers of migrants flowing across the border from Italy, Le Figaro reported.