The Armed Forces of Malta has continued to work at the harried pace it has been maintaining since the start of summer peak migration season.

Following yet another busy weekend, the AFM brought in another 83 migrants between Sunday night and yesterday evening. The last group – comprising 19 men, six women and two children – were brought ashore yesterday evening.

The numbers of migrants being rescued by the AFM are swelling continuously, with Malta having received some four times more irregular migrants so far this year than it had over the same period last year.

On Sunday, the AFM rescued two separate boatloads of migrants – one of 25 and another of 31. The latter group counted 26 men and five women among its numbers.

Malta’s capacity for handling the phenomenon, on the front line as it is, is being stretched beyond its limits, while Malta awaits positive feedback to its proposals for EU burden-sharing proposals, which include the measure that migrants saved at sea by an EU-flagged vessel in a non-EU country’s search and rescue area be divided proportionately across the EU.