Migrants are ready to risk everything for a better life in Europe

There was barely any chatter, and rarely a smile, among the almost 600 migrants who slowly disembarked from a white Italian coast guard patrol vessel on to the sun-drenched dock of the Sicilian port of Augusta on Thursday.

Though they had finally reached their destination - the European shore - after three days at sea and before that a longer, treacherous journey through Africa, there was no sense of celebration. Most were exhausted and traumatised and some were ill with scabies, a skin disease that develops as a result of poor hygiene. Many were drinking from small plastic water bottles to combat dehydration.

Yet this group - made up mainly of young male sub-Saharan Africans - was among the most fortunate because none lost their lives at sea after the six separate ramshackle boats they left Libya on ran out of petrol.

Over the past week, 450 people are estimated to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean as calm weather brought a spike in migrant boats. As many as 11,000 migrants have been rescued by the Italian authorities.

In one case, an entire boat is believed to have capsized and in another grim instance Italian police arrested 15 African men suspected of throwing about a dozen Christians from a migrant boat in the Mediterranean.

"We've learned that the first question to ask is whether all of them arrived," says Giovanni Abbate, a 28-year old human rights lawyer working in Sicily for the International Organisation for Migration who conducted the first interviews with migrants arriving in Augusta. "Luckily in this case the answer was yes."

Last year, Italy wound down an expansive search-and-rescue operation called "Mare Nostrum", in which naval units scoured the Mediterranean Sea up to Libyan territorial waters on the hunt for migrant boats. The mission was called off due to concerns over the €9m per month cost of the effort, but also heavy political pressure from domestic anti-immigrant political parties and other European governments who believed it was encouraging more migrants to make the journey.

Yet nearly four months later, the pace of migration to Italy by sea this year is roughly equal to that of 2014, and may even exceed it, while the number of estimated deaths is 30 times higher. And dire warnings - such as the admonition of Pope Francis to the European parliament in November that Europe should not allow the Mediterranean to become a "vast cemetery" - appear to have gone unanswered.

The EU has funded a €3m per month border patrol effort called Triton - but it has a more limited scope, operating within 30 miles of the Italian coast.

"Unfortunately Mare Nostrum was never replaced by an equivalent capacity to rescue people," Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said this week.

Meanwhile, civil war in Libya - one of the driving forces behind the wave of migration to Italy - has intensified and militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have gained a foothold in the North African country. Such turmoil benefits the human smugglers and traffickers who arrange the migrant trips. "Libya is in chaos. [The refugees] are telling us the most absurd things about conditions there," says Mr Abbate. "Migrants there are merchandise, they are money. They are used to finance militias," he adds.

"The situation has got a lot of worse in Libya, it's a disaster," says Micaela Messina, a 40-year old field officer for Save the Children, who was at the port in Augusta. "There's a lot of abuse, beatings and torture, and there is no distinction between adults and minors," she added.

Arriving in Europe does not mean always mean an end to abuse. Aid workers say some female migrants are in danger of being exploited by sex traffickers, particularly in Italy.

On Thursday, it took nearly two hours for all 600 migrants to be moved from the Coast Guard ship and on to Italian soil. After making their way through a temporary medical facility set up by the Red Cross they were made to sit in orderly rows on the tarmac. Then, as the sun was setting, they were taken to a large tent where they would be identified by police. Half of the group would spend the night there, while the rest would be transferred to a reception centre nearby. Some will allow themselves to be fingerprinted by police and immediately request asylum in Italy, in the hope of achieving the better life that they risked so much for.

Others prefer not to be fingerprinted, with the aim of travelling north to claim asylum in other European countries. Either way, says Mr Abbate of the IOM, all signs are pointing to the wave of migration continuing unabated. "We know there are a lot of people ready to leave [Libya]," he says. "We're expecting a fiery summer."

This story has been amended.

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