A Somali migrant waves as he boards a police bus after disembarking from a boat of the Armed Forces of Malta in Valetta yesterday. He was one of 128 migrants rescued by a US warship from an inflatable raft that was threatening to capsize in rough seas in the Mediterranean.
AFP/Valetta
A US warship has rescued 128 Somali migrants from an inflatable raft that was threatening to capsize in rough seas in the Mediterranean after a request from Malta, officials said yesterday.
The USS San Antonio, which is equipped with an amphibious transport dock that can help in rescue operations, was scrambled on Wednesday after a Maltese military aircraft spotted the dinghy.
“We successfully transferred 128 men between the ages of 20 and 30 from an inflatable raft on the San Antonio,” a US Navy official in Italy said.
“The raft was being rocked by winds and seas and we had expected that overnight the seas would increase. If they were to be left out to sea they would probably be in the water right now,” he said.
“We provided food, water, medical attention and temporary shelter.”
In a statement the Maltese military claimed that the migrants, who said they were from Somalia, were transferred onto two patrol boats and were being taken to Malta.
It said they were rescued around 75 nautical miles southwest of Malta.
Italy this week launched a stepped-up navy patrol operation in the Mediterranean to scare off people smugglers and put pressure on Europe for further assistance amid a growing influx of refugees.
More than 400 asylum seekers have drowned this month in two tragedies in the Mediterranean.
The Italian coast guard meanwhile released video footage of the arrival in Sicily on Wednesday of a Liberian-flagged cargo ship that rescued 93 African migrants - the latest in over 32,000 who have arrived on Italy and Malta so far this
year.
The European Union is indifferent to the plight of boat migrants, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
“It is unacceptable that European politicians only wake up when people die (at sea) and I suspect even if people die there will be some who remain hardheaded,” Muscat told the Times of Malta newspaper.