The Italian Navy has been carrying out four separate migrant rescue operations in the Sicily Channel, with the help of the Italian Navy ships Borsini, Driade and Etna together with merchant ships Cougar and St Jerneborg.

All migrants have been transferred to the ship Etna for health screening and other bureaucratic procedures before they reach land.

A suspected case of TB and/or malaria has been bio-isolated on board the Etna and transferred by helicopter to land. Also on board the Etna a Nigerian woman has given birth to a child. Both mother and child are doing well and have been transferred to Messina where the other 900 migrants on board the Etna are due to land.

A further 400 asylum seekers are due to land in Pozzallo near Ragusa. There is a dead body among them and investigations are being carried out to establish the cause/s of the death of this young man.