File: Rescued migrants on the Mediterranean last year October

An Irish naval ship rescued 712 people including pregnant women and infants off the coast of the Libyan capital of Tripoli as part of an international migrant rescue effort, Ireland’s Defence Forces said on Monday.

Commander Brian Fitzgerald of Ireland’s Defence Forces said the LÉ Eithne ship led the rescue of multiple vessels in distress 40 kilometers north-west of Tripoli throughout Sunday.

He said that six migrants, including one baby, were revived from states of unconsciousness.

According to him, the ship will transport the people, including 14 pregnant women and four infants below the age of four months, to a designated “port of safety” to be handed over to Italian authorities.

He said: “I’m very proud to say all lives were saved, no lives were lost.

“It was a complex operation where lives were at stake at every turn over a full eight-hour period.

“Overall, they were really in a wretched condition but in all cases healthy enough to undertake the journey to a port of safety”.

(Reuters/NAN)