LAMPEDUSA, Italy: The body of a five-month-old baby was found on Tuesday when some 85 migrants heading for Italy from Tunisia were rescued from distress at sea, according to a Reuters witness.
The infant girl, her mother and 4-year-old sister were in an unseaworthy boat laden with migrants that had set off from Sfax in Tunisia two days earlier bound for Italy, according to charity group SOS Humanity.
SOS Humanity workers aboard its “Humanity 1” vessel found many of the migrants exhausted and suffering from seasickness and fuel burns as they were rescued before dawn on Tuesday, the group said in a statement.
Some 185 migrants rescued in separate operations this week, including the stricken boat overnight, were being taken aboard “Humanity 1” to the port of Livorno in northwest Italy. Another 120 migrants were transferred by coast guard boat to the Italian island of Lampedusa in the southern Mediterranean.
Tunisia is grappling with a migrant crisis and has replaced Libya as the main departure point for people fleeing poverty and conflict further south in Africa as well as the Middle East in hopes of a better life in Europe.
Italy has sought to curb migrant arrivals from Africa, making it harder charity ships to operate in the Mediterranean, limiting the number of rescues they can carry out and often forcing them to make huge detours to bring migrants ashore.

LONDON: The US has warned the UK against condemning Iran’s nuclear program at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency next week, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Amid simmering tensions in the Middle East and a US presidential election in November, Washington is reportedly seeking to avoid a regional escalation.

At an IAEA board of governors’ meeting next week, the UK and France are expected to deliver a censuring resolution against Iran over its nuclear program.

But the US is said to have warned other countries to abstain from the resolution, which was drafted over growing frustration with Tehran’s defiance of the IAEA.

Officials in the US have denied lobbying against the British and French move.

As well as electoral concerns, the White House also fears that Iran may be prone to instability following last month’s exchange of strikes with Israel, and the death of the country’s president and foreign minister in a helicopter crash.

UK officials believe that Iran’s nuclear program is as advanced as ever and are “deeply concerned” about escalation, the Daily Telegraph reported.

From June 3-7, the 35-member IAEA board of governors will gather for a quarterly meeting.

Iran is believed to have been enriching uranium to 60 percent purity for three years, following Washington’s axing of the nuclear deal under former President Donald Trump.

Tehran has maintained that it seeks to use the uranium for a civil nuclear program. But the IAEA has warned that no country has enriched to 60 percent purity without later developing nuclear weapons.

Last week, a senior European diplomat described Iranian nuclear violations as “unprecedented” in comments to Reuters.

“There is no slowing down of its programme and there is no real goodwill by Iran to cooperate with the IAEA,” the diplomat said. “All our indicators are flashing red.”