The Libyan Coastguard in the past few days intercepted a boat carrying some 400 migrants which would have ended up in Maltese waters, Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo said on Tuesday.

In an early-morning Facebook post, the minister hailed the Libyan Coastguard for its efforts to tackle migration, saying the fight against the people traffickers needed to continue being waged on land and at sea. 

He said traffickers had, since the beginning of the year, sent more than 7,000 migrants across the  Mediterranean towards Europe but the Libyan Coastguard intercepted and returned more than 3,000. 

He said that Malta was continuing to develop good relations with the UN-recognised Libyan government based in Tripoli. Malta, he said, wanted a united, peaceful Libya governed by its own people.

Fighting the people traffickers was difficult and multi-faceted, he said.

The international community also needed to work with the Libyans for the setting up of humanely-run migration centres where the migrants could have an opportunity to apply for asylum and from where they could be repatriated to their countries if they were ineligible.

Most of the migrants, he said, were not fleeing war or persecution but they were seeking better economic conditions. But opportunities in Europe were diminishing with Europe suffering increased unemployment, making it more difficult for them to accept migrants.