Around 70 migrants feared drowned off Malta

Aug 28, 2008, 12:28 GMT

Valletta, Malta/Brussels - Some 70 illegal migrants were feared dead Thursday after their boat capsized off Malta.

They were reported missing by eight of their companions who were found floating on a half-submerged dinghy some 40 miles south of the Mediterranean island.

There was some initial confusion about the number of missing migrants, with the survivors first telling a fishermen who rescued them that they were in a group of 18. That number was later revised upwards after a top official from the UN Commission for Refugees interviewed the survivors.

One of the two German helicopters conducting the search late Wednesday spotted three bodies floating in the water 56 miles south of Malta. The helicopters are participating in the EU border agency's (Frontex) patrols.

'This is a major tragedy,' Neil Falzon, head of the UNHCR office in Malta said, pointing out that the survivors were severely traumatised.

The survivors told him that the group of 78 migrants, including four women, three of them pregnant, left from the Libyan coast on a dinghy on August 21. Their dinghy started taking in water early on Monday before capsizing. According to reports, some of the immigrants had died of fatigue or dehydration while still on the boat.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), an umbrella group representing 65 refugee-assisting organisations in 29 European countries, said a total of 1,801 immigrants had landed in Malta between March and last week.

Most of them came from Somalia and Eritrea.

'With barely any legal migration routes into the EU from third countries, migrants are forced into resorting to irregular means of travel,' ECRE said.

'This often means that a growing number of people are putting their lives in danger and exposing themselves to a risk of human rights violations along the way, in an attempt to find new routes - however perilous - that will enable them to circumvent EU border control,' the organization warned.

The European Commission said it had seen the reports of the latest tragedy and was in close contact with Frontex.