Italian Coast Guard videos show refugees pulled to safety in Mediterranean Sea
Around 5,700 people were pulled to safety over the weekend as they attempted the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.
Unfortunately, not everyone made it, as at least 14 bodies were recovered and dozens more remain missing, Italian officials said.
Italy's Guardia Costiera, or Coast Guard, shared two videos on Sunday from the dozens of rescue operations this weekend in the central Mediterranean.
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Officials said 2,400 people were rescued on Saturday by the coast guard, ships from nongovernmental organizations and the Irish Navy, according to ANSA, Italy's leading news agency.
Migrants and refugees from Nigeria, Guinea and across North Africa are leaving Libya's coast in droves, many fleeing war or persecution and others seeking better economic opportunities.
They often make the treacherous trip to southern Italy in flimsy rubber boats crammed with passengers and exposed to the elements.
Italy's Coast Guard said another 3,330 people were saved off the coast of Libya on Friday in 24 operations.
Around 12,700 people crossed the central Mediterranean in September, the European Union border agency Frontext reported Friday.
The Libyan Coast Guard reportedly complicated Friday's rescue efforts by attacking a migrant dinghy. Sea-Watch, a German humanitarian organization, said the attacks caused multiple deaths.
Libyan Coast Guard attack on Sea-Watch rescue operation causes multiple dead.
Archive picture by @f_melber pic.twitter.com/B112LMPBKM— Seawatch (@seawatchcrew) October 21, 2016
More than 145,000 migrants and refugees landed in Italy from Jan. 1 to Oct. 19, 2016. That's up from more than 139,000 people over the same period in 2015, the International Organization for Migration reported Oct. 21.
Some 3,654 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2016, up from 3,138 deaths this time last year.
The majority of those deaths happened on the Central Mediterranean route between North Africa and Italy, although hundreds have died on the journey from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea.
Image: international organization for migration
Around 168,800 refugees have arrived on the Greek islands so far this year, many fleeing brutal wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, according to the migration organization.
That's a drastic decline from this time last year, when nearly 515,000 refugees had arrived in Greece as of Oct. 21, 2015. Tougher migration policies in Europe and efforts to settle asylum seekers in Turkey have helped ease some of Greece's migration crisis.
