1ST LEAD More than 1,500 migrants rescued in Mediterranean, 22 bodies found By Alvise Armellini, dpa

Rome (dpa) - Twenty-two migrants died on the dangerous sea crossing between North Africa and Italy, rescuers said Thursday, while more than 1,500 were brought to safety over the past 24 hours.The bodies of 21 women and one man were found Wednesday on one of two dinghies intercepted by a vessel operated by international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediteranee, a German non-government organization.Included in the 209 survivors were two pregnant women and 50 children - most of them unaccompanied."Survivors spent several hours with the bodies on board. Many of them are too traumatized to say what happened. It is not yet clear how these [people] have died," Jens Pagotto, head of MSF‘s search and rescue operations, said in a statement.The victims were said to be lying at the back of the dinghy in a pool of fuel. The survivors were expected to dock at an Italian port on Friday. The bodies were also being brought to shore."Twenty-two people fleeing from violence and poverty died at sea trying to give a future to their children," the head of MSF‘s Italian branch, Loris De Filippi, wrote on Twitter, urging the European Union to open legal migration channels to prevent more tragedies.Meanwhile, the Italian Coastguard said on Twitter that it coordinated eight separate operations in the waters north of Libya in which about 1,000 migrants were rescued.A day earlier, the rescue tally was 567, including those intercepted by MSF and SOS Mediteranee.The International Organization for Migration estimates that 2,954 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the start of the year. This compares with just under 2,000 in January-July 2015.