A record 6,908 refugees and migrants were plucked from flimsy inflatable dinghies and wooden fishing boats on the central Mediterranean Sea during a 30-hour period starting Monday.
Almost the same number – 6,600 – did not make it to safety during the last 12 months.
From August 2015 through this month, those thousands drowned or went missing after their boats capsized while trying to reach Europe, according to a count kept by the International Organization for Migration.
The people crossing the central Mediterranean mainly come from African nations, many of them landlocked like Mali, Niger or Ethiopia. Others hail from remote interior villages in Sudan and Nigeria.
For some, the Italian Coast Guard or private operations like the Migrant Offshore Aid Station become their rescuers.
For others, their first glimpse of the sea becomes their last.