The Italian coast guard rescued 1,400 illegal immigrants off the east coast of Calabria, southern Italy, in an operation lasting more than 24 hours, according to a coast guard press release on Wednesday.
The statement said that rescue operations started late Monday and ended in the early hours of Wednesday.
Illegal immigrants were on overcrowded vessels, including 47 people on a sailboat.
The rescue operation took place off the region of Calabria’s coast, in the Ionian Sea, at the “toe” of the Italian peninsula.
One coast guard vessel took on around 590 migrants from aboard a fishing boat and later brought around 650 to the shore from another fishing boat….