Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/495652
MIRIAM DALLI AS many as 400 migrants are believed to have died in the Mediterranean sea between Saturday and Monday, according to chilling interviews survivors gave to the charity Save the Children. The deaths are believed to have occurred during a shipwreck 24 hours after leaving Libya, which is plagued by violence and civil strife, in an attempt to reach Italy. The boat was carrying about 550 migrants in total, according to some of the 150 sur- vivors who were rescued and brought to a southern Italian port yesterday morning, Save the Children reported. During the first four months of 2015, more than 500 migrants perished while crossing the Mediterranean, a 47% spike in numbers according to the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Italian officials said more than 8,000 peo- ple were rescued over the past five days. Save the Children said that among those rescued were about 450 children, 317 of whom were not accompanied by adults. The survivors of the latest shipwreck were mostly sub-Saharan Africans. It is not clear exactly when the boat capsized. Save the Children, the IOM and other hu- manitarian organisations have called for the European Union to bolster its sea rescue operations before the migrant f lows soar as they usually do in the summer months, when the sea is calmer. Italy, which handled the largest number of migrant arrivals in the EU, has become in- creasingly alarmed about the breakdown of law and order in Libya, which has greatly exacerbated the task of tackling the migrant f lows. Libya is home to two rival governments, and amid efforts for the formation of a na- tional unity government, the Islamic State threat continues to rear its head. Only yester- day, Libya's IS affiliate claimed responsibility for a bomb placed in a garbage bin targeting the Moroccan Embassy in Tripoli. In a separate incident on Monday, people smugglers fired several shots at Frontex res- cuers to recover a wooden boat after the mi- grants it was carrying were rescued some 60 nautical miles from Libya. The search and rescue operation was car- ried out by an Italian tugboat and Icelandic Coast Guard vessel Týr deployed by Frontex. Týr, already carrying 342 migrants from an earlier rescue operation, was called to assist the tugboat in another rescue. After most of the 250 people aboard the second migrant vessel were transferred to the tugboat, a speedboat approached. Its crew fired several shots into the air and then assailants sped away with the empty mi- grant boat. This is the second time this year when armed smugglers took back a vessel used to transport migrants following a rescue opera- tion in the Central Mediterranean. "This is a sign that smugglers in Libya are running short of boats and are more willing to use weapons to recover those used to transport the migrants," said Fabrice Leggeri, Frontex Executive Director. Týr and all the other vessels and aircraft taking part in the Frontex-coordinated Joint Operation Triton have been continuously as- sisting the Italian authorities in the rescue of around 7,500 migrants since Friday. Eleven bodies of migrants were recovered, includ- ing nine from one capsized boat. Nearly all of the operations took place between 12 and 60 nautical miles off the Libyan coast. Malaysians to supply €283m LNG floating storage unit WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION WEDNESDAY • 15 April 2015 • issue 411 • published every wednesdAy And sundAy €1.00 400 dead in shipwreck, smugglers shoot at Frontex rescuers EDITORIAL PAGE 10 Newspaper post Ebola simulation • Malta airport stages evacuation for infectious diseases • PAGE 3 PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD MALAYSIAN oil giant Bumi Arma- da will supply ElectroGas Malta with a floating storage unit for LNG over the next 18 years, in a contract worth €283 million. Bumi Armada's subsidiaries Armada Floating Gas Storage Malta and Arma- da Floating Gas Services Malta inked the deal on Monday for the conversion, supply and operations and mainte- nance, of the floating storage unit. AFG Storage will charter the LNG ship while AFG Services provides ma- rine support. An LNG carrier has al- ready been approved by ElectroGas as the conversion vessel for this project. The effective date of the contract is 13 April 2015. Bumi Armada acting CEO Chan Chee Beng said this was a new venture for the firm in the "promising floating LNG business". Bumi Armada has a presence in over 18 countries spread across five continents. Kobe Steel of Japan will also supply two intermediate fluid LNG vaporisers (IFVs) for the regasification terminal. ElectroGas will be supplying LNG to Enemalta for the period of 18 years and also construct an LNG plant. The plant was scheduled to be completed by March 2015, but has been post- poned to March 2016. The LNG will also fire the Delimara power station extension, which currently runs on heavy fuel oil.