ROME- As many as 400 people including many young people and minors drowned off Libya while trying to reach Italy last week-end, survivors who reached the Italian mainland Tuesday told the Save the Children charity.

 The witnesses who recounted the tragedy were among 150 survivors of the drama who were among several hundred migrants who landed at the port of Reggio Calabria Tuesday aboard the Italian Navy vessel Orione after being plucked from the sea in separate rescue operations, maritime sources said.

In all as many as 5000 migrants reached Italy between Saturday and Monday in 18 different landings at the isle of Lampedusa, in Sicily, Calabria and Apulia, including some 450 children of whom 317 were not accompanied, Save the Children officials said. The surge in migrants trying to reach Italy from Libya is due to recent good weather encouraging people smugglers to load desparate refugees and migrants aboard flimsy craft for the perilous trip.

Valerio Neri, director general of Save the Children  in Italy said that among the new arrivals "many of them have lived through atrocious experiences of violence they have undergone or witnesses and have lost friends, relatives or parents, some in most recent shipwrecks. According to their accounts, the situation in Libya is ever more out of control, and the violence in the streets is constantly getting worse than before. It is fundamental to guarantee adequate reception and the necessary support, also psychologically, especially for the most vulnerable".

 One survivor was quoted as saying "Near Tripoli we lived in a sardine factory for four months. We were over 1000 people. We ate only once a day and could not do anything. If anyone spoke to a friend or a neighbour he was beaten."

"All this was to extort more money. They made you call home, saying that you were dying and at the same time they beat you so your relatives heard you screaming," said Bherane, aged 17.

Save the Children said the growing death toll in the Mediterranean imposes a duty on not just Italy but all the European Union to respond with an improved system of search and rescue able to cope with the situation that many observers believe will worsen in coming months.em 

"The high and constant presence in landings from boats of children on their own, unaccompanied, imposes the necessity to count on an adequate system of welcome -- up to today such a system does not exist and even the system of first reception, with 10 new centres selected by the Interior ministry, is not used systematically and they lack clear and common procedures for the transfer of minors," said Save the Children.

Laura Boldrini, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, saidit ws "terrifying" that people speculate on immigration and "very dangerous" if such speculation is by "public figures," an apparent reference to the anti-immigration Northern League party which has sought to whip up xenophobia against migrants.