The Armed Forces of Malta yesterday denied being contacted to rescue immigrants some 163 nautical miles off Malta, whose voyage in March was reported to have proven fatal to all but 11 of those on board.
On Sunday, the website of the British newspaper The Guardian reported that late in March, a boat carrying 72 passengers, including several women and children, ran out of fuel after leaving Tripoli on March 25 for Lampedusa. It drifted in open waters for 16 days and 61 people died on board while two died shortly after reaching land.
According to the Guardian, the Italian coastguard said they alerted the Maltese authorities about the vessel when, at one point, it was heading towards their search and rescue area.
When contacted yesterday, the authorities denied this and sources said that all migrants reported in that period had been rescued. The only report on a boat in that timeframe reached the armed forces on March 24, the day before the Guardian reported the boat had left Libya, the sources said.
“All migrants reported between March 25 and 27 had been rescued, except one case dated March 24, when a boat with approximately 300 persons on board was reported 32 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, the outcome of which was inconclusive,” sources close to the operation said.
The Guardian said that after 16 days at sea, the journey took the survivors back to Libya, reaching a beach by Zlitan near Misurata on April 10. They were said to be hiding in the house of an Ethiopian in Tripoli.
Reuters reported that Nato is investigating the incident after reports that the boat drifted close to an aircraft carrier but no help was forthcoming.
The death toll of Mediterranean migrant crossings continued to rise over the weekend as reports emerged yesterday of a ship carrying up to 600 migrants sinking just off the coast of Tripoli on Friday.
The local office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said 16 passengers were confirmed dead. This number, however, may rise as the incident becomes clearer, a spokesman said.
A number of people are believed to have survived and are thought to be in Libya, although it was not yet clear who saved them.
The Rome UNHCR office was reported in the Associated Press yesterday saying it was trying to confirm what happened to the passengers shortly after they left a port near Libya’s capital. Witnesses who departed on another boat shortly afterwards and arrived in Italy reported seeing the ship broken apart and bodies floating in the sea.