2,100 Migrants Rescued in Mediterranean

ROME (AP) -- The Italian coast guard says some 2,100 migrants have been rescued at sea to be brought to safety in Italy.

Among those rescued Friday and early Saturday is a 6-week-old boy, one of seven migrants transferred to a coast guard motorboat to be sped to a medical facility. One body was also recovered.

The onset of warmer weather has encouraged even more human traffickers based in Libya to launch overcrowded, unseaworthy dinghies or small wooden boats, leaving the migrants to the mercy of the deadly Mediterranean Sea.

Besides Italian coast guard vessels and a Spanish ship, two cargo ships and boats operated by NGOs helped in the massive rescue effort.

The migrants, most lately from sub-Saharan Africa, are fleeing war, conflict as well as poverty.

(KA)