LAMPEDUSA, Italy, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- The Italian coastguard is conducting a rescue operation for 1,000 migrants stuck in rough waters in the Mediterranean Sea following an incident last week in which 300 migrants drowned.
Officials said Sunday at least 130 migrants had been saved from waters south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Efforts to recover the rest continue.
At one point men armed with AK-47s and riding a speedboat deployed from the Libyan coast, ordering rescuers to return one of the emptied vessels.
Last week 300 migrants drowned after running into storms following their departure from Libya on shoddy boats. The United Nations said the incident could have been prevented if search-and-rescue efforts for migrants in the perilous waters had not been reduced.
After 366 migrants drowned in the same area near Lampedusa in October 2013, Italy committed to a long-term rescue operation known as Mare Nostrum, which ended late last year. A smaller European Union operation called Operation Triton took over, but U.N. leaders predicted more deaths due to lighter efforts.
"There can be no doubt left after this week's events that Europe's Operation Triton is a woefully inadequate replacement for Italy's Mare Nostrum," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in reference to last week's tragedy. "We need a robust search-and-rescue operation in the Central Mediterranean, not only a border patrol."
Last year 3,500 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean en route to Europe, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, while at least 218,000 made the crossing in flight of wars and persecution in Syria, the Horn of Africa and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
The deaths represent at least 70 percent of all migrant deaths between January and September 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, which called the route the "most dangerous" in the world.
