By MaltaMedia News
Thursday, July 31, 2008
After Wednesday night's landing at 0015CET of 81 rescued illegal migrants by the Armed Forces of Malta's patrol-boat P-52, 28 more migrants have been rescued by this same Maritime Squadron Protector-class vessel whilst patrolling during the FRONTEX joint-operation "Nautilus-3".
The rescue was conducted after the AFM's operations' Centre at Luqa Barracks was alerted by the Maltese-registered tug-boat 'Vittorin' that in a position 79 nautical miles south-south-west of Malta it had come across 28 Somali and Nigerian illegal migrants in the water. One female had already drowned, whilst two other persons were allegedly still missing.
An Italian Air Force AB212 rescue helicopter of the MIATM was scrambled to the air, but the woman died before she could be reached for treatment by the AFM doctor onboard.
Following a search in the immediate area of where the migrants were found, P-52 then took onboard the 2 female migrants' corpses and the remaining rescued 28 migrants.
They are expected to be landed at P-52's Haywharf Base at circa 1500CET later on Thursday.
Read more about this issue on MaltaMedia's special feature: Lanċa Ġejja u Oħra Sejra: Malta and its migrations.
Source: MaltaMedia.com, July 31, 2008