Only 20 of 400 Tunisians wanted to disembark

Police yesterday clarified that the reason why no Tunisians were given permission to disembark from a ferry last Sunday was because of time restrictions which did not leave any time for the immigration formalities.

On Sunday the police said that about 400 Tunisian nationals were refused entry after they failed to produce the necessary documentation. But in a statement yesterday they said that only 20 of the 233 Tunisian nationals on board wanted to disembark.

They said the ship, Ariadne Palace, arrived from La Goulette in Tunisia at 10 a.m. to disembark some passengers and unload containers.

Forty-nine passengers, Maltese, English, Italians, Germans and Portuguese, were allowed to land.

The rest of the passengers were in transit to Genoa.

Police said about 20 of the Tunisian nationals insisted on disembarking and subsequently engaged in arguments with the police.

But as the ship was due to raise its ramps at noon and there was no time to go through the immigration formalities, the police did not allow them to disembark.

At one point, police received a report that a person was seen going down one of the ship's ropes and jumping into the sea.

An intensive search was held by the immigration police, district police, mobile squad, and the maritime section of the Armed Forces, but they were unable to trace the man. The search was still going on.

However, police said the person could have been a stowaway because it later transpired that none of the passengers was missing.

No other incident was reported until the ship left Malta at about 1.15 p.m., the police said.