20 migrants lost at sea

Over 20 illegal immigrants are believed to have been lost at sea as four survivors and a corpse were picked up by the Armed Forces of Malta yesterday.

The four are believed to have been on a boat that capsized at sunset on Tuesday to the south of Malta in the Maltese search and rescue area.

A spokesman for the AFM said that early yesterday morning the Maltese-registered tug Budafell operated by Azzopardi Fisheries, towing a tuna pen, took aboard a migrant from the sea 75 miles south of the island. Another three migrants climbed onto the tuna-pen cage and clung to it.

The spokesman added that the migrant rescued from the sea was unable to speak in English but communicated well enough for the authorities to establish that he had been on a boat with 25 other migrants.

The AFM patrol boat went to the scene after an air patrol had failed to spot the any flotsam, taking aboard the migrants and earlier a corpse that had been spotted in the water en route to the tug.

The migrants came ashore at the AFM's maritime base Haywharf last night.

Three of the migrants say they are from Mali and the other from Ivory Coast.

Last month, the Budafell was caught in the middle of controversy after it left 27 immigrants stranded on a tuna net platform for three days until they were rescued by an Italian vessel and taken to Lampedusa.