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Nearly 200 migrants rescued in Mediterranean Sea on Friday

A boat carrying migrants   -  
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Maria Ximena/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.

Italy

It was another dramatic night on the central Mediterranean Sea on Friday with NGO Doctors Without Borders rescuing nearly 200 migrants in five operations.

One of the survivors said they had spent four days stranded at sea after the boat they were on suffered engine failure.

Some people in distress on a fibreglass boat had to be plucked from the water.

A total of 191 migrants were brought to safety on board the NGOs ship, Geo Barents, which is now sailing towards the Italian port of Salerno.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people attempt to reach Europe from North Africa by crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

The UN’s International  Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project found that 3,041 people were dead or went missing in the Mediterranean last year.

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