A yacht carrying 400 people is adrift between Greece and Malta and is taking on water, according to the assistance service Alarm Phone on Sunday, after a surge in migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.
Alarm Phone said on Twitter that they had received a call from the boat, which had left Tobruk, Libya, overnight, and that they had notified authorities. However, officials had not yet initiated a rescue effort, they noted.
The boat was now in the Maltese Search and Rescue region, according to the Alarm Phone. (SAR).
The boat was discovered with two commercial ships nearby, according to the German NGO Sea-Watch International.
According to the report, the Maltese authorities instructed the ships not to perform a rescue and that one of them was only requested to provide it with gasoline.
It was not feasible to contact Maltese officials for comment right away.
People on board were terrified, according to Alarm Phone, with many seeking medical assistance. They said that the ship was out of gasoline and that its bottom deck was filled with water, that the skipper had fled, and that there was no one who could control the boat.
Another NGO, Germany’s Resqship, said on Sunday that at least 23 migrants perished in a different shipwreck in the Mediterranean.
It said on Twitter that the NGO discovered 25 individuals in the sea during a rescue operation and that its personnel was able to collect 22 survivors and two corpses, despite being informed that around 20 additional people had already perished.
Last week, 440 migrants were rescued off the coast of Malta by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity’s Geo Barents vessel following a challenging 11-hour operation in rough seas.
At least 23 African migrants were missing and four died on Saturday after their two boats sank off Tunisia as they tried to reach Italy.
