Over 2,500 migrants to arrive in Italy between Fri and Sat

(ANSA) - Siracusa, June 10 - Over 2,500 migrants were due to arrive in Italy between Friday and Saturday after being rescued when their boats got into difficulty in the Sicily Channel. The Bourbon Argos ship operated by medical aid organisation Medici senza frontiere docked in the Sicilian regional capital of Palermo early Friday morning carrying 592 migrants - 464 men, 119 women including one suffering from serious hypertension and 9 children, including unaccompanied minors and a four-month-old baby probably born in Libya - mostly from Cameroon, Togo, Senegal and Ivory Coast. The latest rescues take to 1,298 the number of migrants saved by MSF in 11 separate rescue operations in the last 48 hours, on top of the over 2,000 people rescued by the international charity organisation since the end of April.
    Also on Friday, the German auxiliary ship Fgs Frankfurt was due to dock in the Sicilian port city of Messina at 4 pm local time with 514 migrants on board.
    On Saturday the Italian navy vessel Aviere carrying 750 migrants is expected in Augusta at 6 am and the Siem Pilot carrying 652 migrants is due to reach Reggio Calabria on mainland Italy during the course of the morning. On Friday the migration 'hotspot' for identification and sorting on Lampedusa contained 363 people, the one in Trapani 129 people and the one in Pozzallo 310 people.