The Italian Navy announced on Tuesday that more than 1,700 migrants have been rescued from the waters of the Mediterranean Sea by the special mission named Mare Nostrum of Italy over the past three days.

More specifically, the Italian rescue team saved over 1,500 people in the Strait of Sicily in 48-hours, from Saturday to Monday, and another 200 which were aboard  three rafts on Monday night. However, they have also found a body in a wrecked raft .

The High Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that about 500 migrants have died this year in the waters of the Mediterranean, including 700 who lost their lives last year in total.

Italy lies at the boundary between Europe and Africa, and has been the main gateway for immigrants for years, but recently it has faced a wave of migrants as many people keep trying to reach European territory so as to escape the civil war in Syria and forced conscription in Eritrea.

Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that about 66,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea from January 2014 to today. This is a historic high as the number exceeds the 62,000 who arrived in Italy in 2011, the year of the riots of ‘Arab Spring’.

The collapse of law and order in Libya, which is the main fount of immigrants means that the authorities in this country are unable to control the number of boats that depart from the country, loaded with ragged people who have paid more than $ 1,000 per person to traffickers for transportation.

It is also noted that the Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzo asked the United Nations to intervene by creating camps in Libya and has called for the EU to invest in Frontex, the service that control its borders.