A group of 44 migrants, reported on Tuesday to the Italian rescue authorities as adrift at sea in the central Mediterranean, have been located and were on Thursday night taken onboard the Italian Navy’s vessel Foscari at 9.19pm, during a search-and-rescue (SAR) operation coordinated by Malta.
The AFM said the initial report on the migrants’ boat was received by Palermo Radio, which indicated them as in distress in a position approximately 135 nautical miles to the south west of Malta, within the Libyan SAR region of responsibility.
Malta’s Rescue and Coordination Centre (RCC Malta) at the Armed Forces of Malta’s Operations Centre, Luqa Barracks, issued a Navtex warning message and broadcast a PAN PAN voice message to all shipping in the area, alerting navigation to the migrants’ predicament. RCC Malta also successfully established contact with the migrants themselves onboard the boat via satellite phone and determined their general condition and the local weather state in their area.
Simultaneously, RCC Malta kept constant contact with the Italian authorities at MRCC Rome who were initially coordinating the SAR efforts, as well as with MRCC Tunis and Nato in Naples, so as to enquire whether any of their respective assets were in the area.
MRCC Tunis deployed a patrol craft and a Tunisian flagged tug-boat to proceed towards the migrants’ last reported position. Both vessels conducted a search in the area, but with negative results.
By early afternoon of Wednesday, when the migrants’ boat was tracked as having entered the Maltese SRR, the Italian authorities declared that “Lampedusa island port is not a place of safety for disembarkation of migrants rescued at sea.”
A total of two successive searches were conducted in the late afternoon and at night as well by the AFM Air Wing’s KingAir maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), with negative results.
On Thursday morning, the AFM’s KingAir MPA again conducted a search in Maltese SRR, south of Lampedusa, as well as an area south west of Malta, with negative results. Neither a Frontex aircraft, assigned to the same mission, was successful. At this stage, MRCC Rome expressed the opinion that the migrants may have been recovered by a fishing vessel.
On Thursday evening, MRCC Rome informed the AFM that the migrants had been sighted by an Italian fishing vessel in a position 125 nautical miles south west of Malta, and 56 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, towards which an Italian Navy vessel was redirected.
By 9pm, the migrants’ rubber boat was sighted and moving by the warship Foscari. The migrants were taken onboard the Italian naval vessel. Some 44 migrants were rescued in total, all of whom were of sub-Saharan origin. A rescued woman and her baby were medically evacuated by helicopter to Lampedusa.