Nearly 1,200 migrants picked up off Libya, heading to ItalyHumanitarian ships rescued almost 1,200 migrants who were crossing the Mediterranean Sea at the weekend on an array of small, tightly packed boats, Doctors Without Borders said on Sunday. A young woman was found unconscious on one of the vessels and later died, the group said. Some 412 people were crammed onto a single wooden boat, while the others were picked up from huge inflatable dinghies, which had set sail from the coast of Libya. The weekend rescues mean that about 22,000 mainly African migrants have been picked up heading to Italy so far this year, while around 520 have died trying to make the crossing. A parliamentarian with the right-wing Northern League party on Sunday accused the NGOs of acting as a "taxi service", bringing migrants straight to Italy rather than to closer nations, such as Tunisia and Malta.

Source: Libya Today March 26, 2017 18:11 UTC