6,500 refugees rescued off Libya coast: Italian coastguard

The Italian coastguard said it had coordinated the rescue of about 6,500 refugees off of Libya in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years.

Dramatic images on Monday showed refugees wearing life jackets jumping off one of their boats into the Mediterranean and swimming toward rescuers.

Amongst those rescued by #Dignity1 today is this sick 5 day old & its twin. @MSF is trying to organize a medevac. pic.twitter.com/rYAoQRFn9I

— MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) August 29, 2016

Wet belonging of a migrant man are drying in the sun after been rescued at the Mediterranean sea. pic.twitter.com/cyWtqR1N3S

— Emilio Morenatti (@morenatti2004) August 29, 2016

"The command centre coordinated 40 rescue operations" that included vessels from Italy, humanitarian organisations as well as the EU's border agency Frontex, and "saved 6,500 migrants", the coastguard wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday more than 1,100 refugees were rescued in the same area, though August has been slightly less busy than years past. The total number of arrivals in Italy in 2016, prior to Mondays rescues, was at around 105,000, according to the UN refugee agency.

More than 3,000 refugees have died at sea while trying to reach either Greece or Italy since the start of 2016, an increase of some 50% on the same period in 2015.