Seven migrants die on day of "Libyan Coast Guard" attack

ROME (Reuters) - The crew of a speedboat labelled "Libyan Coast Guard" attacked a migrant boat packed with some 150 migrants, beating them with sticks and causing
many to fall into the water and at least four to drown, humanitarian group Sea-Watch said on Friday.

Rescuers recovered three more dead bodies on a different rubber boat and picked up a total 3,300 survivors from 24 different boats during the day, Italy's coast guard said.

Germany-based Sea-Watch, one of several non-governmental organisations operating vessels off the coast of Libya, said the speedboat swooped in just as they were about to go to the aid of the overcrowded rubber boat in the early hours of Friday.

"The violent intervention of the Libyan Coast Guard caused a situation of mass panic on board the rubber boat in distress," Sea-Watch said in a statement. "One tube of the rubber boat collapsed, causing the majority of the 150 people to slip into the water."

The Sea-Watch crew recovered four bodies, spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told Reuters. They brought about 120 others safely onto their ship and transferred them to an oil tanker from which they were later moved to another rescue ship bound for Italy.

Four people found unconscious were given rehydration treatment and recovered enough to stand later in the day, although they still needed help to walk, Neugebauer said.

A spokesman for Libya's naval forces in Tripoli said he had not heard about the incident. A spokesman for the EU's anti-smuggling mission Sophia said they had no information about it.

An Italian coast guard spokesman said the rescues and fatalities it counted on Friday included those reported by Sea Watch. Most of the people rescued were from sub-Saharan Africa and had set off from Libya, the spokesman said.

Italy has taken in more than 146,000 boat migrants so far this year and arrivals are set to top 153,000 counted last year. Friday's rescues take the total since Sunday to about 5,500 continue

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