More than 1,000 migrants arrive in Italy within hours

More than 1,000 migrants arrived in Italy within a few hours as hundreds of others, rescued by humanitarian groups' boats, were waiting for a port to receive them, authorities said on Sunday.

The influx is not unusual in summer months but it comes as Italy is preparing for early elections that could bring the hard right to power.

Between January 1 and July 22, 34,000 people arrived in Italy by sea, compared with 25,500 during the same period in 2021 and 10,900 in 2020, Italy's Interior Ministry said.

More than 600 people trying to cross the Mediterranean on a drifting fishing boat were rescued on Saturday by a merchant ship and coast guards off Calabria, at the southern tip of Italy.

They were taken to several ports in Sicily.

The authorities also recovered five bodies of migrants who had died in so far undetermined circumstances.

"The Mediterranean is becoming the biggest cemetery of the desperate," Sicily regional President Nello Musumeci said.

On the island of Lampedusa, about 522 people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, among other countries, arrived from the late hours of Saturday in 15 boats from Tunisia and Libya.

The island's reception centre has been overwhelmed, Italian media reported.

With a capacity of 250 to 300 people, it is now hosting 1,200, according to the Ansa news agency.

The latest arrivals on Lampedusa came by ships carrying dozens, even hundreds of people, and by small inflatable boats, La Sicilia daily reported.

Four Tunisians, including a woman, ran aground during the night on the beach of Cala Pisana after crossing the stretch of sea separating Tunisia and the Italian island.

At the same time, coast guards intercepted a 13-metre ship that had left the north-western Libyan city of Zawiya with 123 people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Sudan.

Charities continued to recover hundreds of migrants in distress in the Mediterranean.

SeaWatch reported that it had carried out four rescue operations on Saturday.

"On board SeaWatch3, we have 428 people, including women and children, a woman nine months pregnant and a patient with severe burns," it said on its Twitter account.

Ocean Viking, run by the non-government organisation SOS Mediterranean, said it carried out two rescue operations on Sunday.

First, it recovered 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied minors, who were crammed on to "an overcrowded inflatable boat in distress in international waters off Libya".

Then 108 people, including many women and children, were found in similar conditions.

The NGO said "195 people are now being cared for aboard the Ocean Viking".

The Central Mediterranean migration route is the most dangerous in the world.

The International Organisation for Migration estimates that 990 people have died and disappeared since the start of the year.

The latest inflow of migrants comes at a politically sensitive time in Italy.

Reformist Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned last week after being toppled by parties in his national unity government.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella has dissolved parliament and set September 25 for new elections to be held.

But Mr Draghi's coalition could be replaced by a government dominated by the eurosceptic Brothers of Italy party and the pro-Russian, anti-immigration League.

Together, the two parties are polling at almost 40 per cent of the vote.

In a tweet on Sunday, Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, condemned the arrival of "411 illegal migrants … in a few hours on Lampedusa".

"On September 25, Italians will be able to finally choose change: for the return of security, of courage and of border control," Mr Salvini wrote.

He has been on trial in Italy, accused of stopping a migrant boat from docking and leaving 147 people stranded at sea in dire conditions while he was immigration minister in 2019. He denies the allegations.

The next court hearings are set to take place in September.