A boat carrying 14 asylum seekers in distress is drifting in Malta's search and rescue area, emergency hotline Alarm Phone said on Saturday evening.

Having fled war-torn Libya, the group had been at sea for five days on a fibreglass boat and needed rescuing immediately, an NGO spokesperson said.

The Italian and Maltese authorities had been contacted about the boat, but had not responded, the spokesperson added. 

On Thursday, around 400 people on a sinking boat in Malta's SAR were rescued by search and rescue vessels, while a few days earlier 49 others were found stranded at Għar Lapsi.

Questions sent to Armed Forces of Malta went unanswered at the time of writing.

 

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