Over 1,000 migrants reach Italian isle; 23 reported missing

With the return of calm seas, migrant smugglers launched dozens of boats from Tunisia during the weekend and some 1,200 people ended up on a tiny Italian island while several were reported missing at sea, the Italian Coast Guard said Monday.

Coast guard officials said in a statement that they responded to 35 boats that had left Tunisia, three of which came to grief.

In one shipwreck some 20 nautical miles off Lampedusa island coast guard and border police vessels said three migrants were missing. In a second, in Malta’s search-and-rescue area, survivors said some 20 people were missing, while in the third, also in Malta’s rescue area, Italian rescuers recovered a man’s body, the Coast Guard said.

Some 20 more boats crowded with migrants were in the sea Monday night, it said.

The coast guard said air and naval assets of the Coast Guard, the Border Police, the European