ROME, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- A humanitarian ship, dubbed in local media as "the ship of children," docked on Friday morning in the Sicilian port city of Palermo, the Italian-French-German SOS Mediterranee non-governmental organization (NGO) announced Friday.
The Acquarius ship carried a total of 606 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, of whom 241 are babies, children and teens, the NGO said in a statement.
Friday's arrivals were rescued in seven different operations in the course of 36 hours in international waters off the coast of Libya and brought to Palermo as the nearest secure port, upon request of the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome, the NGO said.
Among the rescued were 50 people from Syria, where a civil war has been raging since 2011, including entire families with children and two women in their ninth month of pregnancy. The rest came from across Africa and the extended region.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR study, 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2016, and the total seeking safety across international borders as refugees topped 22.5 million last year.
Immigration is a hot-button issue in Italy ahead of the next general election, likely to be held in early 2018. The current center-left government has taken steps to curb the flow of migrants and to fight the human traffickers who profit off them.
