Strong winds battered a drifting dinghy carrying 78 immigrants as they were brought ashore by the Armed Forces of Malta yesterday morning after a difficult rescue operation.
Five babies and 25 women, five of whom were pregnant, were among the immigrants rescued from force seven winds about 80 nautical miles south of Malta.
Despite the bad weather, no one was injured although the AFM's patrol boat was slightly damaged.
"By the time the immigrant's dinghy was spotted it was dark and the wind was picking up. It was a risky operation but we lowered the army's dinghy into the rough sea and transferred the immigrants safely onto the patrol boat," Captain James Grech said soon after reaching shore.
Meanwhile, police and army officers wearing face masks and gloves, escorted the immigrants off the patrol boat.
Women and children were the first to disembark and were led to a police bus that drove them to the police headquarters in Floriana for screening.
An Armed Forces of Malta spokesman explained that the AFM's operations centre in Luqa was informed about the plight of the immigrants on Monday afternoon by a foreigner who lived in Malta.
The caller claimed the migrants had left Libya two days earlier and said the group included women and children.
Meanwhile, the spokesman added, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had also been informed by another foreigner and it notified the AFM, adding that the dinghy was adrift without fuel.
Capt. Grech recounted how he and his crew immediately set off on the rescue mission aboard the army patrol boat assisted by an AFM aircraft. The dinghy was initially spotted by an Air Wing Islander in the early afternoon which returned to base due to low fuel.
The immigrants' were subsequently located by another AFM Air Wing aircraft, before the patrol boat made contact with the persons in distress. The Luxembourg-hired aircraft crew braved the severe winds and storms and used sophisticated FLIR-equipment to pinpoint the dinghy. It remained in the area for some five hours, the AFM spokes-man added.
The patrol boat reached the dinghy at about 10 p.m. The transfer of immigrants to the patrol boat was completed by about 1 a.m., the vessel reaching Haywharf in Floriana at 8.30 a.m.
All immigrants were in good health, except for a pregnant woman who was unwell as she was close to the end of her term, the army spokesman added.
This was the second boatload of immigrants to reach the island this month. Last week, a group of 106 illegal immigrants were brought ashore after their rubber dinghy began taking in water. So far this year, over 1,200 immigrants landed on 13 boats. In the same period last year, 2,568 had arrived in 82 boats.