The Armed Forces of Malta are searching for a group of irregular immigrants who were said to be missing after their boat sank some 40 nautical miles off Malta.

The captain of the Italian fishing vessel Saverio del Ceglia, who rescued the 13 immigrants, said the survivors told him that there were other immigrants on the boat apart from them.

It is believed that the missing immigrants amount to 17 – seven children, one of them a baby born just 40 days ago, five men and five women.

The survivors, consisting of eight men and five women, were brought to Laboratory Wharf early yesterday morning. Only one of the women required hospital treatment.

Vincenzo Nardulli, the fishing vessel’s captain, was reported to have said that he had seen the immigrants swimming in the sea. “We also saw bodies floating in the water,” he said.

The nationalities of the survivors are still being determined, although one report suggests the migrants are from Somalia and Ghana.

In a statement, the AFM said yesterday it conducted a search and rescue operation for the 15 immigrants who were reported missing around 40 nautical miles east of Delimara.

It was the Italian authorities that reported the missing people after speaking to the ship’s captain.

Meanwhile, another boatload of 30 male irregular immigrants landed in Xrobb l-Ghagin in Delimara on Saturday evening. They were handed over to the police for further investigation.

Since January, over 1,000 immigrants have landed on Malta.

On Saturday, 14 migrants travelling from Libya were picked up by the Italian navy off the island of Lampedusa, near Sicily, after 13 of their companions died. At least seven of the survivors were taken to hospital in Palermo.

Two of them were reported to be in a serious condition.