ITALY – In the space of 24 hours, over  1,000 migrants from Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq and Pakistan has been rescued by the Italian navy and coastguard vessels off the tiny island of Lampedusa.

On Wednesday 233 migrants were saved in a separate operation. They were from Pakistan and several African countries and on Thursday, 823 migrants were picked up from four overcrowded, rickety boats. The migrants were mainly from Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq and Pakistan.

Lampedusa has struggled to cope with thousands of migrants coming ashore while the latest boatloads of migrants have been taken to Sicily.

It would be recalled that over 400 migrants drowned in two shipwrecks near Lampedusa, which is the closest Italian territory to North Africa.

Many of the victims were from Eritrea and Somalia. But in the past year the migrant numbers from Syria have soared because of the civil war there.