(REUTERS) – Rescuers pulled 2,400 boat migrants to safety on Saturday, the Italian coastguard said, adding 14 dead bodies had been recovered in the past two days.
The migrants were on rubber boats and other small vessels, it said in a statement. Some 20 operations were carried out on Saturday alone, including rescues involving an Irish naval ship and boats from humanitarian groups Doctors Without Borders and Sea Watch.
Doctors Without Borders said in a tweet on Saturday it believed 12 people had died during rescue operations, four of them children.
More than 3,100 migrants have gone missing or died this year while trying to use the route from north Africa to Europe by boat, the International Organization for Migration estimates.
(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; editing by Andrew Roche)