The European Union is to investigate last weekend’s incident in which a group of 24 migrants were left on Friday and Saturday clinging for dear life to tuna nets being towed by a Maltese trawler, the Budafel, EU spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing confirmed yesterday.

Mr Roscam Abbing added that the EU would also probe other recent reports in which stranded migrants were either not picked up by passing European boats, or were refused entry to ports after they had been rescued by overcrowded vessels.

The latter is a clear reference to the case of the Spanish tug, the Montfalcó, which on Saturday recovered another group of some 26 migrants in Libyan waters and which at one point appeared to have been heading for Malta but is now steaming towards Spain.

In the meantime, the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM), in a combined effort with the Spanish embassy, yesterday morning provided humanitarian supplies in the form of food, water and blankets to the tug, after an overflying AFM aircraft had received a request for these items and patrol vessel P-51 met the tug 22 miles south of Malta.

Mr Roscam Abbing, spokes-man for Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini, acknowledged yesterday that efforts to deal with irregular migration in the Mediterranean were not

working.

Referring to the Budafel incident, he cited the fact that shipwrecked migrants had been left stranded on the Maltese tuna nets, while various national authorities – in other words Malta and Libya – haggled over who was responsible for picking them up.

The group was eventually rescued through the intervention of an Italian naval vessel, the Orione, which entered Libya’s search and rescue zone, collected the stranded migrants and transported them to safety in Lampedusa.

“Cooperation isn’t yet working,” Mr Roscam Abbing said yesterday. “It’s quite a difficult situation.”

He added that European authorities would first analyse the situation to see why coordination between the countries involved had not materialised.

Referring to the refusal of the Budafel to take the migrants on board, and the decision to leave them clinging to tuna nets, Mr Roscam Abbing added: “No captain of any vessel can avoid the obligation to save people’s lives – that is quite clear for the countries concerned. That’s a very clear moral obligation, and that’s also a legal obligation.”

On Monday, AFM commander Brigadier Carmel Vassallo clarified that as soon as the Budafel informed the AFM Operations Centre of the situation, the AFM instructed the vessel that if the migrants were in danger, under international law it would have to take them on board.

Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg also pointed out that, as a private vessel in international waters, the vessel’s master was responsible for making an assessment of the situation and acting accordingly.

Foreign media claims that the migrants had been left on the tuna nets for three days and nights are, however, disputable. Brigadier Vassallo confirmed that, while the first report of the situation from the Budafel had come in at 5.10pm on Friday, at 8.35pm on Saturday the vessel reported the Italian rescue mission was underway.

Given the likely scenario that the Budafel had informed the AFM as soon as the situation arose, the migrants would have spent some 28 hours stranded on the tuna nets – still an unacceptable length of time to be waterlogged and risking hypothermia in the cold hours of the night.

Malta, meanwhile, continued to be the bête noir of the European media yesterday, with criticisms for its failure to intervene in the two highly-publicised migrant situations coming particularly from the Spanish, British and Italian media.

Both incidents, the government insists, occurred well within Libya’s search and rescue (SAR) zone, one 23 and the other 17 miles south of Malta’s designated area.

As such, Malta has refused to be brought into the matter, arguing that rescues occurring so far outside its SAR zone were not its responsibility.

The same could be said, however, of Italy, which eventually recovered the migrants from the Maltese tuna nets, although they were in Libyan waters. The migrants picked up by the Spanish tug on Saturday, meanwhile, could very well have been brought to Malta and been relieved of a lengthy, arduous and cramped journey to Spain.

The Montfalcó yesterday continued to proceed towards Spain and the possibility it would attempt to offload its passengers in Malta has now grown remote.

The Montfalcó is expected to arrive in Spain sometime between tonight and tomorrow night and the tug has handed over the tuna nets it had in tow to another tug in order to make better time.

A spokesman for the Spanish government confirmed yesterday that Spain will be accepting all the migrants. While the migrants aboard are reported to be safe, they remain physically exhausted from their ordeal at sea, and cramped in a vessel not prepared to take so many people on board.

Referring to conditions on board the Montfalcó, the Consiglio Italiano per i Rifugiati (CIR) (the Italian Council for Refugees) yesterday blasted Malta for its handling of the situation.

Citing its “deep concern” for the migrants on board the tug heading towards Spain, the CIR said: “The behaviour of Malta, an EU member for three years and as such bound to Community standards, is shameful for the entire continent.”

Stating, perhaps erroneously, that the recovery of the migrants had taken place “just a few miles from the Maltese coast”, the CIR added: “Malta has an international obligation to immediately authorise the disembarkation of these people, and would be held responsible for any ensuing loss of human life.”

The CIR added that burden sharing and solidarity with a small country like Malta should be addressed urgently by the EU, but that could not in any way be used as “an excuse for not respecting the fundamental rules of any civil society that require saving the lives of the shipwrecked”.

It continued: “The Sudanese and the citizens of five different west African countries on board the vessel stood to lose their lives, while the Maltese and Libyan authorities were still discussing who would be responsible for the rescue operation.”

While Malta insists it has had its fair share of rescue missions this spring, it also stresses that its continuous attempts to mobilise Libyan rescue efforts in its own SAR zone had proved futile, despite different promises from Libya as the situation wore on.

The AFM had repeatedly requested the Libyan authorities to assume the coordination of rescue efforts for both incidents, while diplomatic efforts, through the Maltese ambassador in Tripoli and the Libyan ambassador in Malta, were also undertaken to no avail.

The AFM yesterday said all rescue and recovery co-ordination efforts were followed in accordance with standard international practices.