Eighty-one illegal migrants were rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) yesterday.

The first group consisting of 52 males and one female was in a dinghy that was nearly submerged, some 41 miles off Delimara Point.

It was the merchant vessel Sparto which informed the AFM Operations' Centre at Luqa Barracks at 11.45 a.m. about the migrants.

The Maritime Squadron's patrol boat P-52 which took the migrants aboard was expected at the squadron headquarters at Haywharf in Pietà after midnight because it went to assist another boatload of 28 migrants in distress. The group includes five females one of whom is pregnant, the AFM said.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.