2,100 migrants rescued in Mediterranean

ROME — Some 2,100 migrants have been rescued at sea to be brought to safety in Italy, the Italian coast guard said Saturday.

Among those rescued Friday and early Saturday was a 6-week-old boy, one of seven migrants transferred to a coast guard motorboat to be sped to a medical facility. One body was recovered.

The onset of warmer weather has encouraged even more human traffickers based in Libya to launch overcrowded, unseaworthy dinghies or small wooden boats, leaving migrants to the mercy of the deadly Mediterranean Sea.

Besides Italian coast guard vessels and a Spanish navy ship, two cargo ships and boats operated by NGOs helped in the rescue effort.

The migrants, most lately from sub-Saharan Africa, are fleeing war, conflict and poverty.

Spain’s defense ministry said migrants were plucked from rubber boats and wooden craft intercepted in waters near Libya’s coast.

The ministry said the baby saved had been showing signs of dehydration. when gunmen stormed New Kabul Bank’s branch in eastern Paktia province, according to provincial officials.

Gen. Toryalai Abdyani, the province’s police chief, said five militants attacked the bank; first a suicide bomber carried out an attack, then four gunmen started shooting and were later killed by security forces.

Two of the bank’s security guards were killed in the initial suicide attack in Gardez, the province’s capital, said Abdullah Hsrat, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Paktia. “Unfortunately the bank is located in the main market inside the city, that is why a number of shops and the bank building were damaged,” said Hsrat.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents have recently increased their attacks against Afghan security forces across the country.