Italian coastguards continued to coordinate rescue operations in the Mediterranean on Sunday (August 16) and emergency workers were standing by in the port of Augusta, on Sicily's south east coast to care for 420 migrants disembarking from a Croatian military vessel after having been rescued off the coast of Egypt.
Dazed looking families looked out from the ship while waiting to disembark.
Many emergency workers in Sicily have forgone their summer holidays to be on hand to give assistance to the unceasing flow of migrants to Italy.
"They left from Alexandria, Egypt 10 days ago, they have arrived here in the Port of Augusta on two different ships, one from the Croatian coastguards and one from the Italian finance police," explained Marco Bertoni, an emergency worker with Italy's Civil Protection organisation.
"There are many families, many children, mainly from Iraq but also from Libya," Bertoni added.
These families disembarking were the lucky ones - in another rescue operation on Saturday (August 15) at least 40 bodies were found after apparently getting trapped and suffocating in the water-logged hold of a fishing boat.
Migrants who have arrived in Italy say human traffickers based in lawless Libya charge them between $1,200 and $1,800 for a place on the deck of boats. Those crammed in the hold pay about half as much as those above.
It was the second such fatal incident in the Mediterranean this week, during which about 2,000 migrants have been rescued. Last Tuesday, (August 11) up to 50 migrants went missing when a large rubber dinghy sank in the Mediterranean Sea.
Around 200 migrants were presumed killed earlier this month off the coast of Libya when their boat capsized.
The Mediterranean has become the world's most deadly crossing point for migrants.
More than 2,300 people fleeing war and poverty have died this year in attempts to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 deaths during the whole of last year, the International Organisation for Migration said.
The Geneva-based organisation said the number of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year is approaching a quarter of a million, compared with 219,000 for all of last year.
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