VALLETTA: Malta on Monday pulled 180 migrants to safety from two boats in distress, while 49 more were stuck in limbo at sea as the weather worsened in the Mediterranean.

An army patrol boat picked up 28 migrants from a dinghy some 71 nautical miles southwest of Malta before plucking another 152 people from a wooden boat to the south.

The rescues followed the recovery by Malta Sunday of 69 migrants on a wooden boat which had run into trouble.

Meanwhile, the UN’s refugee agency said time was “running out” for 49 people rescued by NGO boats but denied a safe port in Europe, some of whom have been stranded at sea for over a week.

The NGOs — the German Sea-Eye and Dutch Sea-Watch — called for “an immediate solution for those being held hostage by European States, who are denying them a safe port”.

“With the weather conditions forecast to worsen this evening, a solution must be found by the end of 2018 in order to prevent placing people’s heath at further risk,” they said in a joint statement.

The German-flagged Professor Albrecht Penck ship has 17 migrants from West Africa on board who were rescued on Saturday in international waters off Libya.

At the same time, the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 has 32 migrants rescued on Dec 22 including three young children, three unaccompanied adolescents and four women from Nigeria, Libya and Ivory Coast.

While Italy, Malta, Spain and the Netherlands have refused to accept the Sea-Watch 3 migrants, several German cities have offered to take them in.

On Saturday a government spokesman said Germany would only accept some of the migrants if other European countries also agreed to do so.

Last week, a newborn baby and his mother were helicoptered from a boat to Malta.

“The negotiations over which country takes them in must happen only once those rescued are brought safety to land,” UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel said.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2019