Update: This morning at 7.30am the AFM Offshore patrol vessel P61 disembarked 147 migrants, including a number of children, at the AFM Maritime Squadron at Hay Wharf.

Italian news agencies were reporting this morning that as many as 50 migrants were lost including 10 children when their boat capsized yesterday.The Armed Forces of Malta Rescue Coordination Centre yesterday assumed coordination of a major Search and Rescue incident which took place 60 nautical miles south of Lampedusa Island.

The boat was followed by the Rescue centre and located by AFM aircraft at 1600hrs.

The AFM said that ITS Libra yesterday recovered at 56 survivors including 39 males, 8 females and 9 infants/children. P61 has recovered 150 persons including 113 males, 20 females and 17 children.

A significant number of the survivors were rescued from a life raft deployed by an AFM B200 aircraft immediately after the capsize of the craft.

The more critical cases aboard P61 were evacuated by helicopter to medical facilities in Lampedusa.

Initial reports yesterday afternoon were that the craft, although underway towards Lampedusa, appeared unstable. A few minutes later, the aircraft reported that the boat had capsized and that numerous persons were in the water. Initial assistance was provided by the aircraft which dropped a life-raft in close proximity of the persons in distress.

AFM Patrol Boat P61 was first to arrive on scene at around 1751hrs and immediately initiated SAR activities. It was joined shortly afterwards by the Italian patrol vessel ITS Libra.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that this latest humanitarian tragedy showed, more than ever, the need for action, not words.

He told a press conference that this was not a wake-up call for the European Union. We had gone beyond that. The wake-up call had happened a long time ago.

Dr Muscat said he had made contact with the Italian Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, and both men were in agreement that there could be no further delay. There had to be immediate, concrete action. Irregular immigration is on the agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the European Council but both Prime Ministers were sending a message in advance that discussion would not be enough, there had to be deeds.

Dr Muscat said he was taking note of the comments of the EU Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, about the need for immigrants to have legal ways of reaching Europe, dispensing with such hazardous journeys, and the need for Libya and Tunisia to ensure that traffic didn’t leave from their shores. He said until now it had been all words with no change in behaviour or indeed change in the rules of the Dublin II Convention.

Dr Muscat, refering to his conversation with the Italian Prime Minister, said that Malta and Italy were in agreement that this wasn’t about the frontiers of their two countries but the frontier of Europe. This was not a Maltese or an Italian problem but a European problem. He said Malta was doing its job and Malta had saved people from a sure death and that was why he considered the Armed Forces of Malta as both Malta’s heroes and Europe’s heroes.

Dr Muscat said there had only been words from Europe until now. Malta had sympathy for desperate people but had to be firm with politicians. He said the EU Council at the end of the month had to deliver. He wanted to come away from the meeting saying it had agreed on concrete action.

Photographs – AFM Press Office.

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