NEWS: Italy
MIGRANT MOVES
Nearly 600 migrants and one death found off Calabria.

The 573 refugees and migrants were found overnight on board “two over­loaded fish­ing boats left at the mer­cy of the waves with adverse weath­er con­di­tions that were expect­ed to wors­en con­sid­er­ably,” the coast guard said in a state­ment Tuesday.

A large ship and three patrol boats assist­ed in the res­cue, which took place about 110 km (70 miles) off Cape Spartiven­to, on the south­ern tip of Cal­abria, it said.

Among those recov­ered was the body of a per­son who “had already been dead for a few days,” accord­ing to wit­ness­es quot­ed by the coast guard.

A patrol boat trans­port­ed anoth­er per­son in need of imme­di­ate med­ical atten­tion to the Cal­abri­an port of Roc­cel­la Ionica.

The group includ­ed 59 minors, most of whom were not accom­pa­nied by fam­i­ly members.

The ship was en route to the Sicil­ian port of Augus­ta where the refugees and migrants will be dis­em­barked, the coast guard said.

The win­ter weath­er has not been a deter­rent for peo­ple cross­ing the Mediter­ranean this year despite freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and rough seas.

So far this year, about 10,570 refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea, and more than 1,400 oth­ers have attempt­ed to cross by land or air, accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion (IOM).

About 229 peo­ple have died or dis­ap­peared in their attempt to reach the continent.