The Italian coast guard and five privately-run rescue boats plucked migrants from 16 overcrowded dinghies and three wooden vessels.

After non-stop back-to-back rescues, a total of 2,074 people were brought to safety, the coastguard said, a day after a shipwreck left at least 97 migrants feared drowned off Libya.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) boats Prudence and Aquarius rescued some 1,145 people from nine different dinghies in exhausting operations it said proved their presence off the North African coast was needed.

The rest were picked up by the coastguard, the Phoenix -- run by the Maltese organisation Moas -- the German NGO Sea Eye and the German Jugend's Iuventa.

Rescuers said a teenager had been found dead in one of the rubber boats on Friday during the "very difficult" rescues.

The EU's border control agency Frontex has accused donor-funded vessels of doing more harm than good by sailing off Libya and acting "like taxis", and Italian prosecutors have suggested they may have links with traffickers -- a charge they have fiercely denied.

SOS Mediterranee, which operates the Aquarius jointly with MSF,

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