ROME: The bodies of around 40 people were found on Wednesday in the hold of a stricken migrant boat off the coast of Libya, the Swedish coast guard said.

The macabre discovery was made after Swedish ship the Poseidon was sent to the aid of the stricken vessel by the Italian coast guard, which said it was simultaneously coordinating rescue operations for multiple boats carrying at least 2,000 people.

Swedish coast guard spokesman Mattias Lindholm said the Poseidon had been able to save 439 people on the wooden boat.

“Unfortunately there were around 40 people dead in the hold,” he said. “The bodies are currently being transferred to the Poseidon.”

The Swedish ship was in the area as part of the EU border agency Frontex’s search and rescue mission known as Triton.

Just before the discovery of the bodies, the Poseidon had picked up 130 migrants from a rubber dinghy, Lindholm said.

Italian media reported that another boat with some 700 people aboard was in trouble in the same area.

MOAS, a Malta-based private organization, said in a tweet that its boat the Phoenix was taking part in a complex rescue operation.

“Phoenix are working with Italian and Swedish vessels to assist thousands,” it said.

Italy’s coast guard said at least 10 vessels had issued distress calls and at least 2,000 migrants, “probably more” were in danger.

On Aug.15, the Italian navy discovered the bodies of 49 migrants asphyxiated in the hold of a people smuggler’s boat. Survivors later testified that the victims had been locked below deck and constrained to stay there by force.

More than 2,300 migrants have died at sea this year during attempts to reach Europe, almost invariably on overcrowded boats chartered by people smugglers.

Merkel booed on visit to refugee center

German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Wednesday there would be no tolerance for “shameful and vile” anti-migrant violence, facing down a noisy far-right protest during a visit to a refugee center.

About 200 people massed in the eastern town of Heidenau, some booing and shouting “traitor, traitor” and “we are the mob” as she arrived at the shelter, in a show of defiance over a record influx of asylum-seekers. But following her visit, Merkel vowed: “There will be no tolerance of those who question the dignity of other people.”

“The more people who make that clear... the stronger we will be and the better we will be able to address this task” of caring for refugees.

The showdown in Germany came as chaotic scenes erupted at Hungary’s border town of Roszke with police firing tear gas at migrants.

Police had sought to stop around 200 people trying to leave the country’s main refugee processing center there.

Budapest said it would send in police reinforcements to stem a record influx of asylum-seekers, as more than 2,500 people crossed into the EU country from its southern frontier with Serbia, days before a vast razor-wire barrier aimed at keeping out migrants is completed.

Europe is struggling to cope with its biggest migrant crisis since World War II — from thousands of refugees landing on the shores of Italy and Greece to the hundreds climbing onto trucks to get from France to Britain.

Hamstrung by a lack of a coherent European response to the crisis, governments have undertaken at times contradictory approaches to the issue.

Hungary is building a wall to keep migrants out, while the Czech Republic’s deputy prime minister Andrej Babis called for the visa-free Schengen zone be closed with NATO deployment.

Germany, which is preparing to receive a record 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, instead eased the asylum application procedure for Syrians fleeing a brutal civil war.