Pregnant women, children among migrants rescued

(ANSA) - Catania, May 6 - Rescuers said Wednesday that some 98 migrants, including three children and 35 women, one pregnant, had been at sea for 12 days before their rescue 200 miles from Malta.
    An Italian finance police vessel picked up the migrants a day earlier and said most were in reasonable condition except the pregnant woman who had drunk sea water.
    Meanwhile, migrants continued to arrive at various Italian ports including 203 people brought to Taranto by a merchant vessel after several days at sea where rescue operations were delayed by fog.
    Another ship carried 231 people rescued from a smaller vessel left adrift about 80 miles off the coast of Calabria including 37 women and ten children, one of them just a few months old.
    The Italian Navy vessel Foscari brought about 562 migrants, including five pregnant women, and 75 minors including 25 children, into port in Naples amid tight security that kept journalists at a distance.
    A merchant ship bearing 424 refugees carried on to the more northern port city of La Spezia near Genoa.
    Authorities said they had been plucked from a barge adrift in the Strait of Sicily. Most of the tens of thousands of migrants rescued in the seas between Italy's southernmost tip and North Africa arrive in ports in the south and then are frequently moved further north into Italy.
    Interior Minister Angelino Alfano called for "justice and fair distribution of migrants in European countries and in the Italian regions".
    On the eve of meeting on immigration, Alfano said it was not fair that regions in the Italian south "have the burden of 90% of (migrants) landings" and all of their subsequent care.
    But Matteo Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, said that more must be done to stop migrants from fleeing their home countries for Europe.
    "I can only repeat what we have been saying for two years: block departures, set up relief points and identification in North Africa and sink the empty barges to prevent smugglers from doing their human trafficking," he told television's Sky TG24.