ROME, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- The bodies of seven migrants, including five women, have been recovered after their boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedua, Italian Coast Guard said Sunday.
The bodies of two migrant men were found Saturday night near the beach of Cala Galera on the south coast of Lampedua. Among the bodies of five women migrants who were retrieved early on Sunday, three were found at sea and two more on a beach, the coast guard said in a statement.
Rescue operations have been complicated by rough seas and the large number of people who fell into the water simultaneously, it said.
In a previous statement released on Saturday, the coast guard said it had rescued 149 migrants, including 13 women and three children, from the 10-meter sinking fishing boat.
According to local media, survivors said late Saturday that around 20 people were still missing.
Also on Sunday, Spanish non-governmental organization Open Arms said that Italian authorities had refused to authorize port access to its rescue vessel which carried 73 African migrants on board.
The organization rescued the migrants from a distressed boat off Libya's coast early on Thursday.
"We continue to ask for a safe port to disembark which is a legal obligation by the government according to international conventions. We have people on board who probably need to be evacuated due to health issues," Riccardo Gatti, mission chief of the organization, said via Twitter.
As of Oct. 28, 95,030 migrants and asylum seekers reached Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta, and 78,397 of them across the Mediterranean. A total of 1,078 people were estimated to be dead or missing on their journey, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
