Some illegal immigrants tried to forcibly board an Italian fishing boat, obliging the crew to take a whole group of 30 on board, the AFM reported yesterday.

The group was one of two brought ashore by the AFM on Wednesday night and in the early hours of yesterday morning.

A spokesman for the AFM said the Frontex operation Nautilus 3 informed the AFM's Operations Centre on Wednesday night that the Italian fishing vessel, the Alibut, had reported picking up 30 male migrants from a boat 40 nautical miles south of Malta. The boat was not in a condition to continue on its journey.

The Alibut was instructed to approach Malta to conduct a mid-sea rendezvous with an AFM patrol boat for a transfer of the migrants, who arrived at Haywharf at 3.30 a.m. yesterday.

At 6.50 p.m. on Wednesday, the tanker Forward Bridge informed the AFM that it had encountered a boatload of immigrants 27 nautical miles east of Malta asking for fuel and food.

An AFM Air Wing Alouette helicopter was scrambled and the Maritime Squadron dispatched a patrol boat.

The helicopter reported sighting a 20-foot fibre-glass boat aboard which were migrants wearing life-jackets and still heading north. The patrol boat initially failed to find them.

However, another merchant vessel, the Vema Cape, then reported that the same migrants were alongside requesting assistance. The patrol boat was within seven miles of the tanker and at 11.20 p.m. located the migrants' boat, which was found unfit to travel further.

The migrants, 26 males and 2 females, one of whom is pregnant, were taken aboard the patrol boat and landed at Haywharf base later during the night.