A cargo ship has picked up some 270 migrants found on a large dinghy some 90 miles off Malta.

The rescue took place last night after the Italian and Maltese rescue centres were notified by a priest about the presence of the boat yesterday.

The ship is expected to take the migrants to Italy since the migrants' boat was closer to Lampedusa.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.