A reported 606 migrants, including a record number of children - 241 of whom one was six-days-old and 170 weretravelling alone - arrived in Palermo on Friday aboard the Aquarius rescue ship.   Many of the children were infants and toddlers.   Among passengers were also 11 pregnant women and several wounded people, including a young man who had injuries caused by a firearm and a machete. The migrants were rescued over a period of 36 hours in different rescue operations.

   The arrival on Friday is the first over the past month concerning a large number of migrants hailing from war zones andcentral Africa (from countries including Syria, Egypt, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Sudan, Morocco, Somalia, Eritrea,Senegal, Camerun, Nigeria, Liberia, Ethiopia, Algeria, Ghana, Benin, Gambia and Yemen). A few hundred migrants, mainly from the Maghreb area, were also rescued over the same period of time.

 Many migrants in poor health conditions  Many of the migrants who landed on Friday had symptoms of malnutrition and were in poor physical health. Several womenfrom sub-Sahara reported that they were repeatedly abused and raped and that they were held captive for months.  About 50 migrants are Syrian asylum seekers fleeing Libya. They include entire families with children and two nine months pregnant women.

   A Syrian migrant told volunteers that he fled Syria and reached Libya in 2012. ''I worked in the construction sector butsoon everything in the country became chaotic with no more money nor work. Everything now goes around rackets and humantrafficking'', he said.''They stole my car'', he said. ''It's the same for all foreigners - if you are not Libyan you are nothing so I had no other choice'' but to leave. He said that he attempted the crossing three times and that the last time he left from Garabulli, east of Tripoli.

  Valeria Calandra, president of SOS Méditerranée Italia, the NGO that operates the vessel, said that ''different rescueoperations carried out by the Aquarius over the past few hours show that the humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterraneanis continuing and is even getting worse''.   ''Men, women and in particular many of the children who were rescued are fleeing chaos and the climate of insecurity andviolence in Libya'', she noted. ''Due to the lack of a safe alternative, they have no other choice but to cross thedeadliest part of the sea''. Sos Meditérranée, more rescue vessels needed    The organization has called on national and European authorities to urgently deploy rescue vessels in theMediterranean before more migrants die at sea. ''Due to the absence of an adequate institutional rescue system, we willcontinue our mission at sea over the winter, for the second consecutive year'', she concluded.   Over 23,000 people have been rescued by the Aquarius since the NGO started operating at the end of February.