A baby girl was born aboard a rescue boat in the Mediterranean Sea as Italian Coast Guard and Navy ships bring migrants by the thousands to the country’s southern ports.

In the three-day period ending Sunday, 6,771 survivors were rescued at sea north of Libya from overcrowded rubber dinghies and unseaworthy fishing boats used by Libya-based smugglers, according to a Coast Guard tally reported today.

Ten bodies were found on Sunday on boats or in the sea. Calm seas and mild temperatures brought the spike in arrivals.

The relentless flood of migrants this year is on track to surpass the 170,000 rescued at sea by Italy in 2014.

The Navy said a woman, in labour when rescued yesterday, gave birth aboard a patrol ship. Mother and daughter are fine.

Some 10 Italian vessels, four private boats and a French ship acting on behalf of the European border control agency took part in the rescue off Libya, co-ordinated by Italy, the country that receives the biggest number of Mediterranean migrants.

The private Migrant Offshore Aid Station, which runs one rescue ship in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, said on Twitter it had saved 369 migrants, mainly from Eritrea, from a single overcrowded wooden boat. Growing lawlessness and anarchy in Libya — the last point on one of the main transit routes to Europe — is giving free hand to people smugglers who make an average of €80,000 ($90,000) from each boatload, according to an ongoing investigation by an Italian court.

Libyan state news agency Lana said authorities there detained 500 migrants in five boats off Tripoli and a further 480 migrants - from Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia - were caught in a farm near the central town of Jufra, and another 170 were detained nearby.

EU leaders agreed to triple funding for the EU sea patrol mission Triton, but there is still disagreement on what to do with the people fleeing conflict and poverty in various parts of Africa and West Asia.

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