The Coast Guard today said its vessels and three cargo ships south of Sicily rescued 941 people in seven separate operations that began a day earlier.The migrants had been aboard five motorized dinghies and two larger vessels. One of the migrant boats capsized.
Hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of migrants, fleeing conflicts or poverty, reach Italy weekly on smugglers' boats setting sail from Libya.
The Coast Guard said the migrants claimed to be Syrians, Palestinians, Libyans, Tunisians or from sub-Saharan Africa.