Illegal immigrant drowns, nine missing after attempted sea escape

One illegal immigrant drowned and a number of others who attempted to escape from the Maltese islands are still unaccounted for after their boat took in water and capsized three miles off l-Ahrax Point on Friday night.

Out of 14 men, nine are still missing, three swam ashore, one was rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta and the corpse of another was recovered.

The AFM said yesterday that at 8.20 p.m. on Friday, its operations centre was alerted about people possibly in distress off the northern coast of Malta, in the vicinity of Armier Bay.

The AFM search and rescue boat Melita 2, an Alouette helicopter and land patrols were immediately dispatched to the area to mount a search and rescue operation.

As the AFM assets were proceeding to the area, three male foreigners swam ashore to Ramla Bay. A fourth man was rescued and conveyed ashore by the Melita 2.

The men, who, according to police, claimed to be illegal immigrants who earlier had escaped from the Hal Far and Safi detention centres, said they had been 14 people on the boat.

At 7.15 a.m., patrol boat P24 sighted and recovered the corpse between Malta and Comino, and the boat in which the immigrants were travelling was sighted semi-submerged, three nautical miles north east of l-Ahrax Point.

The search, which yielded no further results, continued during the day by the Melita 2, the P24, an AFM helicopter and an AFM Islander aircraft. The search will resume today.

Duty magistrate Denis Montebello has appointed several experts to assist him in an inquiry.