ROME – Italian coastguard vessels have rescued 539 migrants from a fishing boat drifting off the island of Lampedusa.
The rescue on Saturday delivered one of the largest numbers of migrants to the Italian island in a single day.
Women and children were among those on board. Some of the migrants – who had been traveling across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya – reportedly displayed signs of violence.
Italian prosecutors opened an inquiry into what may have happened.
A doctor from the humanitarian group MSF (Doctors Without Borders), Alida Serrachieri, said a number of the migrants appeared to have been physically assaulted in Libya while waiting for a boat to transport them to Europe.
Investigators are looking at the possibility that the migrants may have been falsely imprisoned in Libya, a local media reported.(BBC)
