The Armed Forces of Malta yesterday justified its decision to leave the scene of the rescue of a group of asylum seekers at sea, in which five migrants then died, saying that it had averted a potentially much bigger tragedy.

The statement was issued in the wake of criticism in the Italian media which said the crew of a Maltese patrol boat abandoned a group of some 120 migrants soon after they were handed life jackets.

In a statement the AFM said that on Saturday it was alerted by its reconnaissance aircraft flying some 80 nautical miles to the south of Malta, as well as by the Italian authorities, to the presence of this group of migrants.

It immediately diverted the tanker MV Norient Star to the spot and dispatched a patrol boat. At the time the army’s operations centre was simultaneously handling a number of distress calls.

The merchant vessel was first to reach the migrants who were aboard a rubber dinghy and, when the patrol boat arrived shortly afterwards, the asylum seekers were handed life jackets.

However, another distress call came in involving a separate group of 128 asylum seekers. The patrol boat was dispatched to assist them as they were deemed to be in a much more perilous situation. The AFM pointed out that, in contrast to the first case, no ship was in the vicinity to assist the second group whose dinghy was deflating and taking in water.

Meanwhile, the Norient Star was instructed to take all migrants on board.

While all migrants from the second group were rescued, the MV Norient Star later reported that the migrants’ dinghy hit the gangway of the ship and deflated with the resulting loss of five lives.

The AFM noted that, if the patrol boat had remained with the tanker and not intervened to save the lives of the migrants on the other dinghy, the loss of life could have been potentially much higher.

A Ragusa magistrate ruled the Maltese patrol boat was not connected in any way to the deaths, Ansa reported.