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The African migrants clinging to life on a tuna net
Last updated at 15:21pm on 28.05.07For three days and three nights, these African migrants clung desperately on to life.
Starving and exhausted, they were forced to grasp on to a passing tuna net after their own craft had sunk.
The shocking image underlines the scale of the world's migration problem.
The 27 African migrants cling on to a tuna net platform as the tug boat's captain refuses to let them come aboard
The Maltese tug boat trailing the net had refused to take them onboard.
The 27 men, whose craft sank off the Libyan coast, were towed across the Mediterranean to Malta, hanging on to an 18in walkway round the top of the net and surviving on virtually no food or drink.
Displaying a breathtaking callousness, the captain then refused to take them to land and they were eventually rescued by the Italian Navy.
The Maltese tug, Budafel, reportedly had caught £1million of tuna which was why the captain refused to help the migrants to safety
Last night, the men - mostly from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan - were safe on the island of Lampedusa, 130 miles off the coast of Sicily.
But they claimed that when their flimsy boat floundered adrift for six days, two fishing boats failed to rescue them - and the Maltese boat, the Budafel, refused to have them on board.
The captain later claimed he refused to take the men to land because he had $1million of tuna in the pen.
"I couldn't take the risk of losing the catch," he said.
The men were eventually rescued by an Italian navy vessel, Orione, that was in the area searching for 53 Eritreans who disappeared at sea last week.
Last night, the migrants were reported to be weak and exhausted but out of danger and ready to depart for Sicily.
Although they were picked up less than 60 miles off the Libyan coast, Libya had also refused to mount a competent search and rescue operation.
Up to 10,000 people are believed to have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa.
And in the last five days alone, 157 illegal immigrants have come ashore on the Maltese coast.
Reader views (2)
A sad story, that so many are prepared to risk their lives to get to Europe.
However, please don't criticise the captain of the boat. He has a living to make, and risks losing his livelihood.
In the UK there are massive fines for lorry drivers bringing in illegal immigrants, even if this is inadvertant.
- David Weston, Exeter
Its terrible no one would pick these people up, but it just goes to show you that there are too many illegal immigrants trying to make it to Europe, hence the lack of support from neighbouring nations.
- Brandon Thomas, London
