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World

Aid agency: 20 migrants rescued at sea had been burned in Libyan cooking gas explosion

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    Injured women wait to be treated in the hospital of Lampedusa Island, Southern Italy, Friday, April 17, 2015. According to rescuers the women were injured in the explosion of a gas cylinder before leaving for Italy. An unprecedented wave of migrants has headed for the European Union's promised shores over the past week, with 10,000 people making the trip. (AP Photo/Mauro Buccarello) (The Associated Press)

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    Migrants are waiting to board on a cruise ship as they leave the Island of Lampedusa, Southern Italy, to be transferred in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Friday, April 17, 2015. An unprecedented wave of migrants has headed for the European Union's promised shores over the past week, with 10,000 people making the trip. Hundreds ó nobody knows how many ó have disappeared into the warming waters of the Mediterranean, including 41 migrants reported dead Thursday after a shipwreck. (AP Photo/Francesco Malavolta) (The Associated Press)

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    Migrants board on a ferry as they leave the Island of Lampedusa, Southern Italy, to be transferred in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Friday, April 17, 2015. An unprecedented wave of migrants has headed for the European Union's promised shores over the past week, with 10,000 people making the trip. Hundreds — nobody knows how many — have disappeared into the warming waters of the Mediterranean, including 41 migrants reported dead Thursday after a shipwreck. (AP Photo/Francesco Malavolta) (The Associated Press)

MILAN – The U.N. refugee agency says at least 20 migrants rescued at sea by the Italian navy had suffered burn injuries, some of them grave, in a cooking gas explosion before departing Libya on a smuggler's boat.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement Friday that none of the victims had been properly treated before boarding an inflatable dinghy for Italy, and at least one of the burn victims had died en route. The 20 burn victims included a 6-month-old child.

They were among 70 migrants, mostly refugees, who arrived Friday on the island of Lampedusa.

Migrants and refugees seeking a new life in Europe have been fleeing Libya in unprecedented numbers in recent days, with Italian vessels rescuing some 10,000 in the last week.