A group of 129 irregular migrants were brought to Malta yesterday afternoon aboard an AFM patrol boat after being rescued by a US Navy ship.

Looking weary but in relatively good health, the group of young men disembarked at Haywharf at 1.45pm and were taken away in police buses to be processed.

One man was taken to hospital, the Home Affairs and National Security Ministry said, but doctors would not comment on his condition.

The migrants had originally informed the Armed Forces of Malta that they were Somalis.

However, according to police, the group was mainly made up of Gambians (70) and Senegalese (36).

There were also 10 migrants from Mali, six from Guinea Bissau, three from Sierra Leone, two from Nigeria, one from Guinea and one from Burkina Faso.

The migrants were met at Haywharf by a pack of local and international press as interest in the irregular migration phenomenon remains high following two tragedies in the Mediterranean this month.

On October 3, around 360 irregular migrants died when their rickety wooden vessel capsized close to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Last Friday, between 50 and 200 migrants perished when their boat capsized 120 miles south west of Malta. Many of the Syrian and Palestinian survivors of that tragedy were brought to Malta . Yesterday’s migrants had been aboard a dinghy 75 nautical miles southwest of Malta when they were spotted by an AFM helicopter on Wednesday.

An army spokesman said the dinghy was battling rough seas and Force 6 winds when it was located.

“It was observed moving very slowly and then it stopped altogether. There was a real risk that it could capsize,” the spokesman said.

The AFM Operations Centre dispatched a patrol boat from Malta to rescue the migrants and instructed a large merchant vessel in the area to render assistance.

The merchant vessel pulled up alongside the stricken dinghy to shelter it from five-metre waves but it was unable to take the migrants on board because of its size and the weather conditions, the AFM said.

After enquiring on vessels that were in the area of operations, the AFM Operations centre established contact with the USS San Antonio, a US Navy amphibious transport ship, which agreed to offer assistance.

The USS San Antonio was recently in the news for holding al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi, who was captured in Libya during a US special operations raid on October 5.

All the migrants were transferred to the American vessel, where they spent the night as it travelled towards Maltese waters.

Yesterday morning they were transferred to an AFM patrol boat two miles off the coast of Delimara.

The transfer of the migrants and their arrival at Haywharf took longer than expected as the conditions remained rough yesterday morning. A spokeswoman for the Home Affairs and National Security Ministry said the AFM’s resources were currently being stretched to the limit by search and rescue operations for migrant boats.

She added that, as of yesterday afternoon, no more vessels had been identified that were in need of rescuing, but the situation was fluid.

After being processed at Floriana Police Headquarters, the latest mig-rants were taken to detention centres where they could spend up to 18 months while their identities are verified and applications for international pro-tection assessed. Including yesterday’s arrivals, Hal Far Detention Centre currently houses 645 migrants and Safi Detention Centre houses 224, the ministry confirmed. Malta has the highest recognition rate for asylum requests in the EU.

Around 80 per cent of applicants this year were granted some form of international protection, according to figures released in September by the UN refugee agency. Speaking in Israel on Wednesday, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat reiterated his persistent call for more assistance from the EU in dealing with irregular migration from North Africa.

He said he would wait for the EU Council meeting next week to see what concrete action was taken before making any policy announcements on the issue.

Rescued group in disturbance

The rescued migrants caused a brief disturbance at the Safi detention centre last night.

Sources said the group refused to be taken into part of the compound and threw items at officers. Police and army reinforcements were called in.

The disturbance started at about 8.15pm but calm was restored within an hour.

Looking weary but in relatively good health, 129 irregular migrants were brought to Malta yesterday after being rescued at sea in an AFM-coordinated operation involving a US Navy ship. The migrants were all men who hailed from West Africa, according to the police. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli