The Italian navy rescued 3,000 migrants aboard more than a dozen boats in the Mediterranean today after receiving requests for help from 22 vessels, the coast guard said.

Operations are continuing and it is still unclear where the people will be taken, a spokesman said.

Also today, 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.