Dozens of Libyan refugees arrive in Malta

A boat laden with 171 African refugees fleeing Libya arrived on Malta on Friday, coast guards said, after Italy claimed it could not provide assistance and refused to take the boat people in.

The refugees, including 17 women and three children, could be seen on the dockside surrounded by Maltese military, an AFP reporter said. They will undergo health checks and be taken to an immigrant centers on the island.

The most recent arrivals bring to over 1,000 the total number of refugees who have arrived in Malta from Libya in the past few days.

A Maltese patrol boat had rescued the immigrants on Thursday some 54 nautical miles away from the Italian island of Lampedusa while out looking for survivors of another boat that capsized on Wednesday.

The Maltese coast guard initially wanted to take the refugees to the Italian island, but were refused entry, Italy's coast guard said.

Malta's Interior Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said Italy had claimed "that Lampedusa was overcrowded and lacked medicine and food, when we know there are only 84 immigrants on the island," Ansa news agency reported.

Mifsud Bonnici said international law stipulated refugees should be taken to the nearest secure port: "This was not correct behavior by the Italians."

After waiting outside Lampedusa's territorial waters for 90 minutes, the refugees were taken to Malta, 91 nautical miles away, and arrived there nine hours later.

Italian rescue vessels resumed their search for survivors from the boat carrying refugees from Libya which sank south of Sicily in the early hours of Thursday but hopes of finding anyone alive were fading.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said a total of 51 people, most from central Africa, had been picked up by rescue vessels which answered a distress signal sent via Maltese authorities in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"Survivors said that there were another 150 people, and the search for them is being conducted at sea at the moment with the help of two merchant ships," he told parliament.
"The search is continuing but hopes of finding anyone still alive grow weaker by the hour," he said.

Wednesday's incident was the most dramatic of its kind for some time but many smaller boats carrying migrants have sunk while attempting to reach southern Europe from Africa, killing unknown numbers of refugees and migrants.