The Italian coastguard launched a massive operation to rescue more than 2,000 migrants in difficulty between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the Libyan coast.

Italy said it was evacuating staff from its embassy in Libya and suspended operations there, highlighting the worsening security situation in the violence-plagued country.

Some 2,164 migrants coming from Libya had to be saved from a dozen boats, Italian media reported, citing the country’s emergency services.

More than 900 other migrants were picked up by coastguard and customs police boats, while the rest were rescued by various ships in the area, the TV station said.

The Italian transport ministry said some of its coastguards had been threatened by four armed men earlier in the day who approached them by speedboat from the Libyan coast.

Last year, more than 3,200 people died while attempting to reach Italy by boat from North Africa.  The United Nations has described the sea crossing as the most dangerous route in the world.

To get more support, governments tie these immigrants to terrorism.  While this may well be the case, what is clear to us is that women and their children are involved.  While this particular instance in Italy may not involved human trafficking, it calls our attention to the perils of a treacherous journey taken for often nefarious reasons.

A fictional account of what is going on was written by popular Italian writer Andrea Camilleri in  Rounding the Mark, in which two seemingly unrelated deaths form the central mystery.  They take Detective Montalbano deep into a secret world of illicit trafficking in human lives.  Women’s children are wrested from families by profiteers who make vast sums of money selling them.