Malta has started processing the asylum applications of 61 migrants who arrived late on Sunday following a rescue operation.

The migrants, including an unconscious man who is being treated at Mater Dei Hospital, were the latest to be picked up by Maltese authorities after their boat was deemed to be in distress.

The overcrowded dinghy had been drifting at sea for several hours on Saturday after the engine had stalled. The boat was also showing signs of deflation, the authorities said.

A government spokesman said the migrants would be processed here as they were now the island’s responsibility in line with international law.

They will likely be detained for several months as their asylum applications are processed.

They will be detained until their asylum applications are processed

Italy’s right-wing Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini uploaded a picture of the migrants’ boat on his Twitter feed last weekend.

The photograph, taken from an aircraft, showed the male migrants packed into the dinghy.

Tension over the ongoing migration crisis was at a high this weekend as Italian Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli called for EU sanctions against Malta accusing it of failing to pick up migrants as they transited through the island’s rescue zone.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said a Maltese patrol boat had monitored the migrants’ vessel, which, he said, was not in distress.

The boat with 171 migrants onboard headed towards Lampedusa and was intercepted by an Italian coast guard vessel, which decided to pick up the migrants.

The vessel proceeded to Catania, but migrants were denied permission to disembark there and remained stranded on board the vessel. 

Government sources said on Monday that the coast guard wanted to bring the migrants to Malta but the vessel was denied entry.

When the migrants were picked up, they were closer to an Italian port and, secondly, they were in transit and not in distress, the sources said.