.png)
.png)
Updated | 85 migrants rescued by Armed Forces
Migrants to arrive today Friday after two rescue operations in Libyan and Maltese search-and-rescue areas.
19 April 2013, 12:00am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
1 min read
File photo: AFM
85 migrants have been rescued by the Italian navy, according to Italian reports which said the migrants were trans-boarded to a patrol craft of the Armed Forces of Malta now headed for Malta.
The rescue operation in the Sicilian channel took place on Thursday afternoon under the coordination of the Italian coast guard, after a rescue call was placed from a dinghy carrying over 100 in Libyan waters. Another rescue call later in the day came from a boat carrying 85 other migrants in the Maltese search and rescue area.
Libyan ships, the Italian coast guard, and two motorboats from Lampedusa were dispatched on site.
At around 8pm, the 10-metre dinghy was located, apparently being close to total deflation. 16 migrants, of which 12 were women and two children, were immediately succoured by the Italians for health reasons. The other 71 were rescued by the other vessels.
According to news website GrNet.it the rescue operation "was a dramatic one", rendered difficult by the fact that some of the migrants had jumped into the water.
Searches are still ongoing for missing migrants.
The other 85 migrants were saved by the Armed Forces of Malta and the Italian coast guard, and were brought in to Malta at around 10:30am.
The operation involved two Italian coat guard vessels at a position 88 nautical miles south-west of Malta. The rescued persons have been transferred aboard three AFM units.
•
LANDA NAGET ISWED SARET MALTA
•
The question that should be asked. Was the dinghy in Maltese territorial waters? If it was only in the Maltese Search and Rescue Area that does'nt mean that Malta had any legal or moral obligation to bring them hear.If the rescue took place in Maltese territorial waters,we have an obligation to bring them hear.It is up to the Maltese Government to demand from other European countries that the policy of burden sharing will be obligatory.
•
Allow me to give thanks to 'MALTATODAY' for letting me express my deep concern.
I also wrote to a sister English paper who claim to be independent to free speech and my concern written was to what I wrote to this paper but it has been CENSORED.
Yes we have those who are journalist and we have luckiest they both claim to be reporters what a shame.
•
We expect the Maltese Government:
1. to put Malta's national interests first in the problem of illegal immigration;
2. to stop illegal immigrants from coming to Malta regardless of what JRS and UNHCR say.
3. to return to their country as many of the illegal immigrants as possible by means of a determined policy of finding them in the well-known areas of Malta where they can be found in large numbers and of making the countries of origin move to give the required travel documents, if necessary by threatening to use our clout in the EU.
Lawrence Covin •
Rescued?
•
Everything the do-gooders have said in the last ten years amounts to a call to these people to take the risky journey. Everything that has been said by UNHCR, the Swede Cecilia Malmstrom, the JRS, Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the Commissioner for Human Rights and others amount to one message - come because we the do-gooders will defend your right to be in Malta.
•
These never-ending arrivals are forcing Malta to a slow death by suffocation. Maltese taxpayers cannot afford the cost. Malta's space is limited. Malta's security is precarious. We are only laying the ground for huge social strife in the near future. The problem has now become unsustainable. Malta's very survival is at stake.
•
Just now I was watching YouTube and there is a posted film by a Mob of Muslim in Benghazi. It is called: 'Libya: Cemetary of british war victims destroyed by Muslim Mob'. In it they call the followers of the cross dogs.
Why on earth do they want to come here after all to do the same here?
