Migrants pulled off sinking boat

ALMOST 100 people have been rescued from a sinking boat as more vessels full of illegal migrants head to the tiny island of Lampedusa, already struggling with thousands of Tunisian migrants.

Major Fabrizio Pisanelli said a border police vessel took aboard 98 migrants, including five children, from the boat and took them to safety on Lampedusa.

Police helicopters and boats spotted another boat, with about 40 people aboard, headed to the Mediterranean island, close to the Tunisian coast.

Migrants keep coming despite Italy's efforts to deport thousands of Tunisians already on Lampedusa. Choppy seas had thwarted transfers to holding centres on the mainland for days.