The migrants were travelling aboard inflatable dinghies and overcrowded boats, the coast guard said. In this photo provided by the Italian Navy, migrants are approached by an Italian Navy dinghy in the Mediterranean sea on Saturday. Credit:Italian Navy The Mediterranean has become the world's most deadly crossing point for migrants. More than 2300 people have died this year in attempts to reach Europe by boat, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Many are seeking alternative routes to Western Europe. On Saturday, thousands of rain-soaked migrants stormed across Macedonia's border as police lobbed stun grenades and beat them with batons, seeking to enforce a decree to stem their flow through the Balkans to western Europe. In the US, meanwhile, a federal judge dealt a blow to the Obama administration's immigration policies, ordering federal officials to promptly release children held at family detention facilities.

The judge, in a ruling released Friday evening, said that children should not be held for more than 72 hours unless they are a significant flight risk or a danger to themselves and others. The Italian coast guard said Saturday that by early afternoon it was coordinating rescues from four fishing boats, crowded with migrants, and from 14 smaller motorised rubber dinghies. Credit:Italian Navy It's unlikely that a mass release will happen right away, however. Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles gave federal officials until October 23 to comply with her order. In a statement released Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security did not specify its next legal steps, saying only that it will "continue to screen family members' claims as expeditiously as possible" and that it will review Justice Gee's decision and "consider available options with the Department of Justice".

The case centres on a 1997 legal settlement - known as the Flores agreement - which set legal requirements for the housing of children seeking asylum or in the country illegally. In July, Justice Gee found that the government had violated that agreement; she repeated that finding on Friday. Federal attorneys had argued that her initial ruling would spark another surge of illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Justice Gee denied the government's request for reconsideration, equating that argument to "fearmongering". The Obama administration is detaining an estimated 1400 parents and children at three detention facilities, two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. The detentions came as a response to a sharp increase in the number of people - mostly Central Americans - crossing into the US last northern summer. Justice Gee has called the detention centres and temporary holding cells along the border "deplorable" and has said they "failed to meet even the minimal standard" for "safe and sanitary" conditions. Government attorneys argued conditions at the centres have improved, but Justice Gee wrote that they had failed to prove that point.

More than 100 Democratic members of Congress this northern summer called on the administration to end family detention, saying children should not be held in prison-like settings. Peter Schey, who launched the lawsuit and serves as court-appointed counsel for children in immigration custody, said the judge's order would help protect refugee children "from lengthy and entirely senseless detention by the Department of Homeland Security in unsafe adult lockdown facilities run by private corporations raking in millions of dollars in profits". Reuters, Los Angeles Times