The Malta Independent on Sunday
SAVED FROM THE SEA
Maltese paramedics treating the infant and woman who were transferred to Malta yesterday morning after being rescued at sea by the USS Bataan during a massive migrant rescue operation that involved Malta, Italy and the US Navy, during which well over 1,000 lives were saved
Malta, Italy and US Navy between Friday night and yesterday conducted a massive joint migrant rescue operation as several hundred migrants en route to Europe found themselves distress at sea.
By the time of going to print last night, well over 1,000 migrants had been plucked from the clutches of death by the joint effort.
The deluge comes after 2,500 migrants were rescued earlier this week and the Italian authorities are speaking of a growing and urgent crisis. On Friday, Italian officials said almost 47,000 people had arrived from North Africa by sea since the beginning of this year, a tenfold increase over the same period in 2013.
Nearly 1,200 migrants were rescued off the coasts of Italy and Malta in the early hours of Saturday.
The Italian coastguard said it plucked more than 1,000 migrants from three boats off the coast of Lampedusa in the second such operation in two days.
In Malta, the army said it rescued 103 migrants from a dinghy that had deflated.
Favourable weather has boosted the number of boats trying to reach Europe from the coast of Africa, often in Libya, where criminal gangs organizing boat trips have flourished amid the breakdown of law and order in the country.
Most of the migrants reportedly hail from Eritrea or Syria, with others fleeing impoverished parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
The multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan transferred 277 persons in distress to the Armed Forces of Malta offshore patrol vessel, the P61, and another five persons were medically evacuated to Malta yesterday.
The five migrants who required urgent medical assistance were airlifted to Mater Dei after a night during which AFM was involved in a large scale operation which involved the simultaneous rescue of 25 migrant boats at sea.
In a statement, the AFM said it was “actively contributing to one of the largest aero-naval search and rescue operation that unfolded in the Mediterranean over the past years”.
The search and rescue operation saw the involvement of a number of Italian Navy and Coast Guard vessels, US Navy warships, all the merchant vessels in the area as well as three AFM patrol vessels and an AFM Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
A joint AFM-US operation with the USS Bataan saw the migrants being transferred onto the American ship and it was decided that a total of five migrants were to be transferred to Mater Dei Hospital in Malta from the ship, using its onboard V22 Osprey Aircraft.
The aircraft landed at the Malta International Airport with the five migrants – one child, a woman and three men - where an ambulance transferred the migrants for further medical treatment at Mater Dei Hospital.
All the operations throughout the night were coordinated by the Maltese and Italian Rescue and Coordination Centres.