Mediterranean

Giant sunfish caught in Mediterranean

The mammoth sunfish, a species classed as vulnerable and not eaten in Europe, was 3.2 metres long and 2.9 metres wide, Mr Ostale said in an interview on Thursday.

He had been called in to assess the find, a record for the area which, due to tides and sunfish migratory patterns, has no shortage of such encounters.

"We tried to put it on the 1,000kg scale but it was too heavy. It would've broken it," he said.

Mr Ostale heads Seville University's marine biology laboratory in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the north coast of Africa.

Russia sends warship to region amid feud with US

Russian state media reported that the frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, would call at a logistics base at Tartus, Syria. Russia also pledged to help strengthen Syria's air defenses after the US strike on the Shayrat airbase in western Syria.

Authorities struggle to identify dead in migrant tragedies

     

     

Adal Neguse,Smuggler's boat, Mediterranean, Aylan Kurdi

Months of anguish over whether their loved one's body will be found.

The emotional pain of looking at photos of badly disfigured corpses.

Red tape and wasted time with bureaucrats who "just talk and talk" but don't keep their promises.

51 bodies found in hull of migrant ship off Libya

     

The Swedish ship Poseidon was already rescuing 130 migrants from a raft north of Libya's coast when it got a call to assist a nearby wooden ship, authorities said. The Swedes rescued 439 survivors from the wooden boat then looked for the bodies.

"We had to cut up the deck of the wooden boat to get to (the bodies) in a safe way," Swedish coast guard spokesman Mattias Lindholm told The Associated Press.

Irish navy: Migrant boat carrying 100s capsizes off Libya

Irish naval vessel Le Niamh was one of several ships requested by the Italian coast guard to speed to the rescue of the overturned boat shortly before noon, Irish Capt. Donal Gallagher told The Associated Press by phone.

Gallagher said that according to preliminary reports some 150 migrants were spotted in the water after the smugglers' boat, which was estimated to have been carrying 600 migrants, overturned. "An Italian (military) helicopter has dropped additional life rafts" into the sea, Gallagher said.