Updated 4.53 p.m: An AFM patrol boat has rescued 76 migrants found on a 15-metre boat south east of Malta.

The migrants include eight women, one of whom is pregnant. A man (and not a boy as previously reported) died on the boat and was thrown into the sea.

The migrants are from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Bangladesh, and Chad. Some also said they are from Canada! They are thought to be bluffing.

The presence of the boat was reported to the Maltese authorities by Nato yesterday.

A Maltese military aircraft located the boat this morning about 75 miles off Malta and a patrol boat was deployed to the area. It was established that the boat was in distress and the migrants needed rescue.

The AFM said the boat appeared to have left from Misurata, Libya, on Saturday.  

The migrants, some of them in poor health, were transferred from their boat to the AFM patrol boat,  which returned to the AFM Maritime Base at Haywharf at 4.45 p.m

Just under 1,000 migrants arrived on a packed fishing boat in Sicily early yesterday after also having left fro the Misurata area.

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