Update 3: Migrants to disembark at Anchor Bay

(Last updated 11.40 am on Monday)

A group of 162 migrants rescued by a tanker off Malta on Sunday is expected to be brought ashore this afternoon after rough seas and a strong North-Easterly wind continued to make it impossible for the ship to enter Grand Harbour or for a mid-sea transfer to take place.

The Overseas Primar rescued the migrants from a 10-metre boat some 59 miles south of Malta. It anchored overnight on Hurd's Bank, but is this afternoon expected to head for the more sheltered Anchor Bay on the West coast of Malta, where the migrants will be transferred to AFM patrol boats and landed on the small pier in the bay.

The Marshall Islands-registered Overseas Primar picked up the migrants from a 10-metre boat after a Maltese patrol boat could not arrive on the scene owing to the very rough sea.

The AFM said this morning that the rough seas had also prevented it from meeting a request to supply blankets to the tanker.

The group of migrants - the first to arrive in Malta this year, is made up of 133 men, 28 women - one of them pregnant - and a child.

The arrival of this group follows the arrival at the end of last month of another group of 139 migrants. Migrant arrivals in winter had previously been rare.

Some 500 migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday.