1,300 at risk in the Ionian Sea, Coast Guard and Navy in action

(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 10 - The Coast Guard is intervening to help around 1,300 people on boats trying to reach Italy.

Three patrol boats are operating about 70 miles south of Crotone to rescue a boat with about 500 migrants on board.

Other units of the Coast Guard - Nave Dattilo and 3 further patrol boats are providing assistance to two other boats with a total of about 800 migrants on board which are, instead, about 100 miles from Roccella Ionica.

The rescue operations, coordinated by the Coast Guard operations center in Rome in an area under Italian responsibility, are particularly complex due to the large number of people on board the adrift boats.

Operations will continue in the next few hours also with the use of an ATR 42 aircraft,

    And the Sirio ship of the Navy is also intervening, called by the Coast Guard "in difficulty", as the Defense Ministry reports.

The military ship, she adds, "is proceeding at the maximum speed allowed to provide the assistance requested".

(HANDLE).