More than 600 immigrants rescued, four women drowned as boat capsized off Libyan shores

Italian Coast Guard said more than 900 migrants were rescued in four separate operations in the Strait of Sicily on Saturday, while Libyan authorities said they had rescued nearly 600 migrants from four boats, one of which sank.

A spokesman for Libyan naval forces, Ayoub Qassem, said the bodies of four dead women had been recovered, and some migrants were still missing.

Italian emergency services recovered one corpse during their rescue operations. Those rescued off the coast of western Libya on Saturday included migrants from sub-Saharan African countries and from Bangladesh, Qassem said.

More than 550 other migrants had been rescued in other operations between Wednesday and Friday, and 17 saved on Thursday had been seriously injured when their boat caught fire, he said.