Seventy would-be immigrants to Europe from Africa perished when their boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea, eight companions rescued off Malta said.
If their statements are confirmed, it would be one of the worst such incidents ever recorded off Malta, a target destination for Africans trying to reach Europe.
The survivors were plucked out of the water on Wednesday by a Maltese fishing vessel, the Madonna di Pompei, from a semi-submerged dinghy 70km off Malta, then transferred to a military patrol boat.
PHOTO: EPA
An Armed Forces of Malta twin-engine Islander patrol aircraft went out to the area to look for other survivors, but none were found.
It earlier emerged during police questioning that the original group consisted of 79 people — all men, apart from eight women, four of them pregnant, and one child.
But a UN official later placed the original number at 78.
Investigations were continuing, a police spokesman said.
The passengers, all African, had apparently set sail from Libya last on Thursday last week and hit bad weather, said Neil Falzon, a representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Malta, who met with the survivors.
Four of the dead were women, three of them pregnant, he said.
“On Monday, the rubber dinghy started taking water and it overturned,” Falzon said. “They just kept holding on to the dinghy until last night they were spotted by the Maltese fishing vessel.”
He identified the immigrants as Eritreans, Ghanaians, Somalians and Sudanese, news reports said.
Malta, the smallest of the 27 EU member states, is a target for Africans trying to get into Europe by boat from North Africa, with Libya being the most common point of departure.
Some 1,700 illegal immigrants landed on Malta last year, according to an AFP count.
On Sunday, more than 100 illegal immigrants were brought ashore in two separate operations off Malta.
The last case of serious loss of life off Malta came in May last year when 53 would-be immigrants perished at sea.
“Notwithstanding that they know about [previous] tragedies, these desperate people still try and make the journey,” Falzon said.
Some 380 would-be immigrants have died at sea over the first six months of this year in the Sicily Canal alone, Doctors Without Borders estimates.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS