Four migrants found dead

A humanitarian group said it recovered the bodies of four migrants and rescued around 400 survivors yesterday from an overcrowded wooden boat in the Mediterranean between Italy and Libya.

The dead had suffocated below deck, the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), whose Topaz Responder rescue ship carried out the operation, said on Twitter.

A spokesman for the Italian coast guard said around 500 people had been saved in three rescue missions yesterday, all around 20 miles (32 km) from the coast of Libya.

The coast guard spokesman said the Bourbon Argos, run by humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, had gone to the rescue of a rubber boat.