Ümit Gürpınar, the Turkish captain of a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel, rescued 97 illegal migrants when their dinghy started taking on water off the coast of Malta over the weekend, the Daily Sabah reports.

Gürpınar’s vessel was sailing near Malta when the country's authorities alerted him Saturday that their ship was the nearest to the dinghy carrying Libyan, Syrian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani migrants.

Gürpınar and his crew found themselves hosting the migrants after both Malta and Tunisia, the other closest country to the spot, refused to take in the migrants. After about 12 hours of negotiations, Malta reluctantly admitted the migrants, Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported Monday.

See the report here

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