Survivors of a migrant boat shipwreck await evacuation on an Italian warship at Catania harbor in Sicily on Tuesday after being rescued, as Italy threatened to send asylum-seekers to other European countries if they don't receive more help to stem a wave of arrivals from North Africa. Dozens of medical personnel stood by to assist the survivors in four tents. "Our society is getting used to this tragic normality," said Father Piero Galvano, the local director for the Catholic charity Caritas. Seventeen migrants died as their boat sank and 206 were rescued. In the last 10 years, more than 30,000 migrants have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to the Italian coast. Photo: AFP

Some of the survivors of the shipwreck are taken away from the port at Catania by bus after disembarking from Italian frigate Grecale Tuesday. Many of the migrants came from Eritrea, Nigeria and Syria. Photo: CFP

Some of the 340 illegal migrants who were rescued by the Libyan navy off the coast of the western town of Sabratha when their boat began to take on water, sit at a shelter on Monday in the coastal town of Zawiya, west of Tripoli. Libya has long been a springboard for Africans seeking a better life in Europe, and the number of illegal departures from its shores is rising. Photo: AFP

A group of young African immigrants sits on Monte Gurugu in front of the Spanish exclave of Melilla, in Morocco, on Saturday. Refugees gather in the illegal refugee camp near Melilla located on the north coast of Africa to cross the border fences to Spain. Photo: IC