Mother, baby among 12 migrants who died crossing to Italy

ROME: Twelve migrants have died in the Central Mediterranean, Italian officials and a rescue charity said on Friday, as a debate rages over Rome´s crackdown on NGOs operating in the world´s deadliest crossing.

Italy´s coastguard recovered the bodies of eight migrants -- five men and three women, one of whom was pregnant -- in a boat late on Thursday. The 42 survivors on board, who were brought to the tiny island of Lampedusa, said the bodies of a baby and a man had been lost at sea, the coastguard said on Friday.

Separately, German charity Sea-Eye said its ship Sea-Eye 4 rescued 109 people, including numerous children, in two operations in the central Mediterranean overnight. They also recovered two bodies.

“In the past six years, in more than two dozen missions, we always arrived in time to prevent the loss of life. But this time we arrived too late for two people,” Sea-Eye chairman Gorden Isler said.