AFM rescues 37 migrants off rubber dinghy

A group of migrants who were at sea on a rubber dinghy have been rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta, the army said.

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, the AFM said the rescue people are being taken to the army’s Hay Wharf base.

Rescue support organisation Alarm Phone, writing on Twitter, said that the Maltese authorities had confirmed that they had rescued the group of 37 migrants at around 8.30am on Sunday.

Earlier today the organisation said that some of the migrants were “near death” and needed “immediate medical care”. They said that, despite having been informed of the migrants being in distress in the Maltese SAR zone, the Maltese authorities had after a number of hours not yet come back with details on the SAR procedures.

The dinghy, Alarm Phone said, had left Libya a day earlier, and the Maltese authorities were alerted to the situation at around 10.30pm on Saturday.