Malta's Home Affairs Ministry confirmed that a rescue was carried out by a patrol boat of the armed forces.

A group of around 70 migrants, all men, landed in Malta on Tuesday after they were rescued in the Mediterranean.

The Home Affairs Ministry confirmed that a rescue was carried out by a patrol boat of the armed forces of Malta, but gave no further details.

Malta has not seen the same scale of migrant arrivals as other parts of the Mediterranean; more than 2,000 migrants landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa over the weekend.

A March report by the Council of Europe’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment criticised conditions at detention centres for migrants in Malta, accusing the government of breaking international law and flouting European values.

The report was issued after a delegation visited Malta in September, 2020. It said it found migrants who were “forgotten for months”, locked in filthy and degrading conditions without adequate healthcare.

Malta says it follows international law in the rescue and treatment of migrants. Several small groups of migrants were sent to other European countries over the past weeks through arrangements made by the European Commission.


Five years moratorium on non-EU immigration to Europe

EU has struggled to negotiate new laws on immigration from other Continents especially Africa. Germany and France tried to lead the effort to discuss new quotas of the migrants' absorption but the majority of the EU countries rejected the idea.

On Tuesday, former EU Brexit negotiator, Mr. Michel Barnier stated that France should introduce five years moratorium on non-EU immigration.
The problems with immigration are not modest. Effectively we need to take some time over three to five years and suspend immigration, Mr. Barnier said in an interview.

European nations rescue migrants in distress. Since the April 21 wreck alone, the Italian coast guard and navy have rescued at least 149 people near its coasts. Spanish authorities, meanwhile, deployed military planes and helicopters as well as rescue ships to airlift three people and recover the bodies of 24 who had died in a wreck April 26 nearly 500 kilometers from the country’s Canary Islands.