It was claimed yesterday that the Maltese authorities refused permission to a French naval ship to land the bodies of 21 illegal immigrants found floating in the sea off Malta in a state of advanced decomposition in Malta.

International media reports spoke of long discussions between Malta, Paris and Libya regarding the destination of the 21 bodies that had been picked up by the French naval vessel La Motte Piquet in the Gulf of Sirte.

Asked to accept the bodies, the Maltese authorities were said to have stated that the boat had sunk in Libyan waters and that only if Libya refused to take them would Malta accept the French ship in Malta.

The long drawn out legal tussle was solved in the evening by the French decision to order its ship back to the French coast.

With the deputy prime minister in Tunisia and the Prime Minister in Rome, there was no official left in Malta to provide the Maltese government’s position.

This diplomatic tug-of-war was by no means the first regarding illegal immigrants in a week of tragic events. There was the long-drawn out dispute regarding the illegal immigrants clinging to a tuna pen, solved when an Italian boat took them on board, and later a similar one regarding other illegal immigrants on a Spanish ship.

Malta has widely been criticised abroad for its stand in this regard.

It was reported yesterday evening that another boat with 30 illegal immigrants was stranded between Libyan and Maltese waters.

It was only in the morning that the Maltese authorities asked an Italian military plane, Atlantic, to go on the spot and find out the exact location of the boat. Then they also sent a patrol boat to help the illegal immigrants.

The 30 illegal immigrants, including two children and a woman, raised the alarm yesterday by means of a satellite phone. A relative who is at the Safi detention centre received the message. According to coordinates reconstructed through the satellite phone’s GPS, the boat is some 80 miles south of Malta, which is within the Maltese Search and Rescue (S&R) area.

International media reports have said that when pressed by the UN High Commission for Refugees to send help, the Maltese authorities first said the boat was one mile out of the Maltese S&R area, but later accepted to send a patrol boat.