The African migrants clinging to life on a tuna net

13 April 2012

For 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.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in