VALLETTA: The Italian navy rescued 90 migrants stranded in the Mediterranean on Thursday, as 75 other migrants found clinging to a tuna pen were taken to Malta, officials said.
The Italian vessel rescued the migrants, including 15 children, after they sent an SOS signal to Alarm Phone, a volunteer-run Mediterranean rescue hotline, saying that they were taking on water.
The Italian navy confirmed to AFP that the rescue operation was underway but could not immediately provide any further details.
The migrants told Alarm Phone that a five-year-old girl on board had died, although this could not be independently confirmed.
Alarm Phone, which is operated by German association Watch the Med, said the Italian vessel could have rescued the stricken migrants “nearly a day ago.”
The Maltese navy said earlier that it had rescued 75 migrants found clinging to a tuna pen while trying to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
The Maltese military said in a statement that it had coordinated multiple joint rescue operations in conjunction with the Italian coast guard and “in support of the Libyan coast guard.”
The UN refugee agency said it spoke to the refugees and migrants when they arrived in Malta “exhausted, hungry, and extremely relieved to be on land after three days at sea.”
Malta has appealed to the EU for help in dealing with the flow of migrants, which is a much larger neighbor Italy has begun to turn away.
The island of 450,000 people is a common destination for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa, and a hard-line stance from Italy has increased pressure on it.
In Italy, the UNHCR said that two boats carrying a total of 103 migrants arrived on the island of Lampedusa having left Libya three days ago.
The UNHCR said that they were “exhausted and cold.”
International Organization for Migration figures show 24,687 migrants have reached Europe so far this year, well below the record of around one million in 2015, and 144,000 last year.
Italy, Malta rescue stricken migrants in Mediterranean
Italy, Malta rescue stricken migrants in Mediterranean
- International Organization for Migration figures show 24,687 migrants have reached Europe so far this year
- The island of 450,000 people is a common destination for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
