German NGO Sea-Eye rescued 223 people, including four pregnant women and eight children, in four operations off Malta, it claimed on Friday.

The search-and-rescue organisation said in a statement the operations were carried out between Thursday and Friday during a Christmas mission ahead of a brewing storm.

By Friday afternoon, the Sea-Eye Four crew was looking for a fifth boat in distress.

"Although further boats carrying numerous people in acute distress have been reported at sea since yesterday, Malta has once again failed to fulfil its obligation to coordinate distress cases at sea and rescue these people.

"Civil sea rescue organisations are currently the only European forces looking for people and trying to bring them to safety. Since the weather is expected to deteriorate significantly soon, the chances of survival for people who are still at sea decrease significantly," the NGO said in a statement.

'EU's cold-blooded ignorance costs human lives'

The NGO's spokesperson Sophie Weidenhiller said she was "grateful" that the Sea-Eye Four was able to save several people.

"At the same time, it is hard to bear that we have to assume that no help at all came for some of the boats in danger. Civil sea rescue capacities are important, but also limited.

"The cold-blooded ignorance of the EU costs us human lives - the sea-grave is growing, even if we constantly fight against it. The people who drowned in agony simply wanted a life in safety to which they were entitled - and we deny it to them. But what right do we have to elevate ourselves above these people and their fate," she asked.

By Friday afternoon, the Sea-Eye Four crew was currently looking for a fifth boat in distress. Photo: Sea Eye

Children with bone fractures

The survivors are currently being cared for and medically treated by the crew.

One child has a broken arm and another has a broken finger.

Two pregnant women have stomach pains and several people have had to be treated for chemical burns and hypothermia.

The aid organisation German Doctors is supporting Sea-Eye rescue operations financially and with medical staff and expertise.

“It is shocking how many people flee across the Mediterranean in overcrowded, completely unsuitable boats, regardless of the dangers. And it is deeply inhuman that the EU continues to leave the rescue of these desperate people to NGOs like us," the organisation's head, Christine Winkelmann, said.

"Shortly before the turn of the year, we hope that politics will finally change in 2022 and that the dying at the deadliest sea border will come to an end."