242 distress cases were documented between January and June 2025 in Malta's search and rescue (SAR) zone, the Malta Migration Archive has said.

"The 242 cases involved more than 10,000 people - men, women and children - in distress in Maltese waters over a six-month period. Despite Malta's legal and moral obligation, the authorities responded to only two of these distress cases," the Malta Migration Archive said in a statement.

"This is a wanton abdication of Malta's duty to respond to people in distress in its SAR zone."

It said that in parallel, data it has "reveals an unprecedented increase in pushbacks by Libya from Malta's SAR zone. Malta allowed the so-called Libyan coast guard into its SAR zone at least 16 times, comprising 6.6% of cases in the first half of 2025. This surge reflects more than double the number of pushbacks that occurred in the first half of 2024 and eight times the number in 2023," it alleged.

"Malta's responsibility to assist people in distress in their SAR zone and ensure they are disembarked in a place of safety is incontrovertible."

It said that "these 16 pushbacks from within Malta's search and rescue zone involved 800 people forcibly returned to Libya, where migrants and refugees face systematic violence including unlawful killings, torture and other violence, arbitrary detention, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, slavery and forced labour, extortion, and exploitation," the statement read.

The Malta Migration Archive lists a number of partners and collaborators it has including aditus, AlarmPhone, the Association for Justice, Equality and Peace, the Civil Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre SARchive, Moviment Graffitti, Search and Rescue Malta Network, and Spark 15 and says its work is supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council