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Grisly find off Maltese coast
02/06/2007 08:50 - (SA)
Valletta - A French navy ship found 21 bodies floating off the coast of Malta on Friday, French and Maltese authorities said.
The frigate Motte-Picquet was on a routine mission south of the island when it began spotting the bodies on Friday morning.
It conducted a search co-ordinated from Malta, a Maltese armed forces spokesperson said, and had recovered 21 bodies by dusk.
Diplomatic efforts were under way to arrange for the bodies to be taken to Tripoli, Libya, the spokesperson said.
Emmanuel Dinh, spokesperson for France's Mediterranean maritime authority, said there was no sign of a boat and the navy could not yet identify where the bodies had come from.
"They are in a state of decomposition so they have been in the sea for several days," he said.
Last week, 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them.
They were eventually picked up by the Italian navy.
Malta refused to allow a Spanish tugboat to land another 26 would-be migrants. Spain decided to take them in.
The migrants' plight has sparked calls from European Union officials for EU countries to adopt common rules to clarify who is responsible for saving the refugees at sea.
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