The Armed Forces of Malta were last night assisting the Italian coastguard in a major rescue operation involving over 1,000 migrants in about 12 boats some 180 kilometres south of Lampedusa.
This follows the rescue of about 600 migrants the previous day from several boats about 50 miles north of Libya, and the news five days ago that 300 migrants had drowned en route to Europe.
Yesterday’s massive rescue operation came as both the Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition made calls for international intervention in Libya to prevent it from descending into chaos.
Meanwhile, a Virtu Ferries catamaran evacuated 44 Italians from Libya, stopping over in Malta last night before heading to Italy. There were no Maltese aboard.
The ever growing turmoil in the neighbouring North African country, coupled with calm weather, is spurring migrants to flee its shores.
An AFM spokesman yesterday told Times of Malta that the armed forces were helping the Italians to coordinate the latest operation and had diverted a patrol boat to an area south of Lampedusa.
The news broke in Malta when Joseph Muscat tweeted: “#Malta @Armed_Forces_MT working with #Italy authorities in major joint operation rescuing migrants on numerous boats leaving from #Libya.”
There was no information last night that any of the migrants rescued would be brought to Malta. The AFM did not receive any distress calls, the spokesman said.
“The AFM’s job is to monitor the migrants’ condition as well as the weather conditions and to divert any merchant vessels if necessary,” he said, adding that everything was done in close cooperation with the Italian authorities.
The AFM’s job is to monitor the migrants’ condition
In the afternoon, the Italian coastguard told Reuters it had so far plucked more than 130 people from two rubber boats and was working to save migrants on eight more vessels. The coastguard ship Fiorillo and several cutters were deployed, along with four merchant ships and two tug boats which were diverted to join the operation.
One navy ship, two police patrol ships and a Maltese vessel had also been mobilised, the coastguard spokesman said. Meanwhile, 40 people were rescued by the Italian authorities on another boat a few miles off the coast of Libya while some 280 migrants landed in Pozzallo after being rescued in the Sicilian Channel.
One of the migrants was found to be suffering from a gunshot wound.
According to Italian news agency Ansa, in one of the rescue operations, about 50 miles from Tripoli, gunmen threatened an Italian coastguard patrol boat, ordering it to leave the migrants’ boat behind after the rescue. The Italians, who were not armed, obeyed the order.
As Italy terminated its Mare Nostrum search and rescue mission in November, with a much smaller EU mission taking over, a number of UN experts warned about the upsurge of migrant departures.
The UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, François Crépeau, warned that Malta was not sufficiently prepared to deal with a large influx of migrants should this occur.
And the local representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Jon Hoisaeter, also urged Malta to prepare for a potential upsurge as the situation in Libya deteriorates.
Over 150,000 were rescued in the Mediterranean last year, with another 3,500 people losing their lives.