Matthew Vella The Armed Forces of Malta have failed to recover five corpses lost at sea that were sighted by a German border police helicopter last Wednesday, 55 miles away from the islands, MaltaToday has confirmed.
The army says its P-52 patrol boat was occupied with a search and rescue mission the next day on Thursday for some 70 migrants, whose boat capsized the previous day, leaving just eight survivors.
But another patrol boat, the P-51, was only despatched on Friday to follow-up on the sightings of the five corpses by the German helicopter, currently in Malta as part of the Frontex mission Nautilus 3.
The five corpses, believed to be of African migrants out of a group of 79, were sighted by the helicopter on Wednesday 27 August and Thursday 28 August, after the eight migrants were rescued by a fishing vessel from their semi-submerged rubber dinghy on Wednesday.
The migrants who were saved by the MV Madonna di Pompei, claimed to be the remaining sole survivors of the group that totalled 79 – eight of which were women, four of them pregnant, and one child.
But while the AFM instantly dispatched its P-52 vessel to collect the survivors, the sightings by the German Puma helicopter were only acted upon by the armed forces two days later on Friday 29 August.
The Maritime Squadron’s P-52 was in the area some 40 nautical miles away on a Frontex patrol and was immediately despatched to the Madonna di Pompei, according to an AFM statement issued that day.
At 11:58am the migrants were transferred on the P-52 and then transferred again on another craft mid-sea, the P-32, where they were taken to Haywharf Base in Floriana.
That same day, the German helicopter sighted three corpses in three different locations in positions around 55 miles from Malta, the AFM reported in a statement.
The next day on Thursday, the helicopter sighted yet another two corpses, 54 miles away from Malta.
The AFM statement that day claimed that “whilst it cannot be ascertained for now if these sightings pertain to migrants from the same survivors’ party, it is planned to continue with other searches tomorrow Friday.”
The statement omitted to include whether any recovery efforts were made for the bodies, while no statements were issued on any follow-up.
Recovery mission on Friday
MaltaToday can now confirm that the armed forces followed up on the sightings by the German helicopter on Friday, with no results.
The AFM spokesperson said the Maritime Squadron’s P-51 was tasked with a follow-up on the German helicopter’s sighting of the previous day, but no corpses were located.
“P-51 was deployed for practically the whole day, and the German Puma helicopter performed two further searches to augment the chances of spotting any more survivors or other corpses. Since on both occasions the sightings were in the evening, that is just before sunset, it would have been practically impossible to locate the aerial spotted corpses in the dark,” the spokesperson said.
Asked why the corpses were not immediately recovered, the AFM spokesperson said a search and rescue mission gave priority to the rescue of people at sea who are potentially still alive.
“The primary responsibility in SAR operations is to render assistance to persons in distress at sea in order to save lives and, consequently, the recovery of corpses is not given the same priority as saving lives.”
The spokesperson added that the recovery of dead bodies at sea is only carried out if this does not “adversely influence the readiness of AFM assets to save lives” – suggesting that the AFM was mainly concerned with the saving of other potential lives when the sightings were recorded.
The spokesperson said the two corpses sighted on Thursday “may well have been from the three others” sighted on Wednesday.
The army also confirmed no signals were sent to neighbouring authorities or merchant sea vessels on the corpses.
“Since the precise location of the alleged tragic occurrence cannot be pinpointed with precise certainty in either the Maltese search and rescue region of responsibility (SRR) or any neighbouring one to the south, and given that the corpses were sighted well within the Maltese SRR, there was no need to notify any other neighbouring SAR authority.
“Merchant sea vessels are not equipped for the recovery of corpses, and so no communiqué signal was emanated by Malta VTS to shipping crossing the sea lanes in the area.”
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