The Maltese authorities have not responded to a request made on Wednesday evening to disembark 274 migrants aboard the search and rescue vessel Ocean Viking.

“The Ocean Viking asked the Maltese and Italian RCCs for assistance in facilitating a swift disembarkation on Wednesday evening. The ship has been waiting for instructions from maritime authorities since,” read a statement issued on Thursday by the NGO SOS Mediterranee, which operate the vessel.

Asked whether they would be allowing the rescued migrants, who include 22 women and 64 minors to disembark, a spokesperson for the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) said they could not disclose information on the issue.

According to a statement by the NGO, the migrants were brought on board from three rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"These three search and rescue operations were again conducted with a complete lack of coordination from maritime authorities," said search and rescue coordinator Nick Romaniuk.

“It is unacceptable that these people could be left alone, in distress, in the middle of the sea, in extremely overcrowded and unseaworthy boats where death would be their only option,” he added.

Sea Watch 3, another NGO operated search and rescue vessel, also rescued 121 people including 19 women and eight children on Wednesday, 30 nautical miles north from Zawiya, Libya.

“The Sea-Watch 3 has been back to the search and rescue zone for less than a day and has already carried out a rescue of 121 people,” the NGO tweeted.

Plea to authorities to cooperate on 91 missing migrants

A demand for information from the Maltese authorities to help determine what happened to 91 migrants feared drowned on February 9 was published on social media by emergency hotline Alarm Phone on Thursday. 

“Families of people who left that day are reaching out to Alarm Phone reporting missing relatives, and we need to give them clear answers about the fate of their loved ones,” reported the NGO on twitter.

In the statement, the NGO published an email, they had sent to the Maltese, Italian and Libyan authorities as well as other migration agencies asking for details that could help them determine what happened to the missing migrants.

Less than a fortnight ago, the NGO said they received a distress call from a black rubber boat, with reportedly 91 people on board, that had departed from Libya that night. 

While the Armed Forces of Malta had carried out a rescue that night, the NGO said they had reason to believe the boat rescued was not the same as the one that issued the distress call. 

The officers on duty at the Malta Rescue Coordination Centre, they continued, informed them that a search flight had been launched that morning, and that they had spotted a deflated rubber boat at the last position of the case reported by Alarm Phone.

“We believe that this deflated dinghy is indeed the boat we had alerted authorities of, and we need to confirm whether the deflated boat had been rescued by the Libyan Coast Guard, or whether, instead, there was a shipwreck,” the NGO wrote.

Contacted by Times of Malta regarding the 91 migrants feared drowned, a spokesperson for the AFM said they could not give any information.  

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