The fate of some 50 migrants in two boats remains unclear, a day and a half after Libya and an Iranian cargo ship failed to go to their aid despite requests from Armed Forces of Malta’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre (RCC Malta) at Luqa Barracks.
On Thursday afternoon, the migrants sent a distress call through a relative in Malta via a satellite phone call when about 47 miles off the Libyan coast, and when well within the Libyan Search and Rescue Region of responsibility. The AFM immediately contacted Libyan and Italian RCCs, as per normal procedures.
On Friday, after contact with the migrants had been lost for some time, one boat managed to get in touch with the relative again, reconfirming that they required assistance and giving their latest position. That same evening, the AFM were still waiting for Libya to inform it of any developments resulting from the search it had promised to carry out.
The Libyan RCC informed the AFM at 6pm that an aircraft had been dispatched to the migrants’ boats area, and promised to advise within an hour’s time of the AFM of their search’s outcome. Since by 8.40pm, no news was heard of from the Libyan RCC, the AFM’s Operations’ Centre faxed their Libyan counterparts requesting a report on the search effected for the two migrants’ boats. Phone calls up to 10.10pm to the Libyan RCC and the migrants’ satellite phones went also unreplied.
At 11.25pm, the foreign national in Malta who had first notified the AFM on the migrants’ predicament, got back in touch with RCC Malta advising that one of the boats had successfully returned to Libya, whereas the other accompanying boat was still missing. RCC Libya was updated by fax with this latest information at 00.18am.
When telephone contact was somehow made with the Libyan RCC, the AFM was informed that the search aircraft had been out in the area but was obliged to return due to the bad weather over the search zone. The same aircraft was scheduled to perform the same attempted search yesterday morning; this information was promised as following by fax as well to RCC Malta.
RCC Malta’s attempts to phone the sole remaining missing boat failed between 3am and 7.30am. Later yesterday morning, at 8.45am, RCC Libya did not confirm the reported boat’s return to its shores, and confirmed the promised search aircraft had been dispatched. By 1.16pm, with no contact yet established by satellite-phone with the missing boat, RCC Libya reported that its aircraft had spotted nothing in the assigned search area.
At the same time, RCC Malta requested confirmation of same information by fax and what plans or intents RCC Libya had to tackle and bring to closure the missing migrants’ boat case. With no fax from RCC Libya acknowledging what was requested and discussed, RCC Malta faxed them a confirmation request as earlier intimated over the phone. Nothing was forthcoming till 1.48pm.
In the meantime, in a separate development, MRCC Rome notified RCC Malta that a foreign national in Italy had advised them that a fellow national had reported the departure at 11am from the Libyan port of Zuwarah of a boat with an estimated 300 persons onboard, heading in a Northerly direction. The AFM’s Protector-class OPV P-52 was already some 15 nautical miles in the south of Malta at 11.57am, and had reported nothing in sight.
Later this afternoon, an AFM Air Wing Islander aircraft conducted a search South of Malta, and between 1.43pm to 4.20pm it reported as well that nothing had been spotted.