Shipwreck survivor brought to Malta
The survivor said 50 people perished when a migrants' boat was shipwrecked in the Central Mediterranean
Updated 7.20pm with AFM statement.
A survivor of a migrant boat's shipwreck in the Central Mediterranean on Friday has been brought to Malta for medical treatment.
The Armed Forces of Malta told Times of Malta that the man was rescued from the sea by a cargo ship off Tunisia. Owing to bad weather, he could not be taken to Lampedusa, and was instead brought to Malta for medical treatment.
Earlier, the Alarm Phone NGO said the survivor had reported that 50 others had died at sea.
The boat departed from Tunisia, with its passengers spending 24 hours in the water, the NGO said. It is unclear whether the rescued person was the sole survivor.
Last week Alarm Phone said it had been alerted to the plight of 150 people on board three boats which had departed Tunisia for Europe and gone missing. It is not immediately clear if the shipwrecked boat was one of those three.
Italian news outlet ANSA said the Lampedusa Port Authority had searched the area where the shipwreck is believed to have occurred but had not located the vessel or any other survivors.
The reported shipwreck took place as the Mediterranean saw strong winds and high waves caused by Storm Harry and another storm system further west. Malta suffered extensive damage in some areas, while parts of Sicily were left "unrecognisable".
On Tuesday, Alarm Phone said the missing boats were at “severe risk” due to the adverse weather conditions.
Attempts to reach the NGO were unsuccessful at the time of publication.
Last month saw the first notable arrival of irregular migrants in recent years, when 61 people were rescued when their boat capsized off Malta. One man died, and six were taken to hospital. Most of those arrivals were eventually repatriated.