Unprecedented increase in pushbacks from Malta’s SAR zone

There were 242 distress calls registered in Malta’s search and rescue (SAR) in the first six months of 2025, but Maltese authorities only responded to two of the cases, according to the Malta Migration Archive.

According to the new data, the 242 cases involved more than 10,000 men, women and children in distress in Maltese waters.

The data also reveals an increase in pullbacks by Libya from Malta’s SAR zone. According to the archive, Maltese authorities allowed the Libyan coast guard into its SAR zone at least 16 times, comprising 6.6% of cases in the first half of 2025. These 16 pushbacks saw 800 people forcibly returned to Libya, where migrants and refugees face systematic violence, including unlawful killings, torture and forced labour.

“This surge reflects more than double the number of pushbacks that occurred in the first half of 2024 and eight times the number in 2023. Pushbacks to Libya are illegal under international law. Malta’s responsibility to assist people in distress in their SAR zone and ensure they are disembarked in a place of safety is incontrovertible.”

In 2023, MaltaToday and newsrooms published a recording of a Maltese AFM pilot passing on coordinates to a Libyan militia group that had been tasked with carrying out coastguard duties.

Survivors of these pullbacks spoke to journalists about the serious human rights violations they suffered at the hands of the militia group’s boat operators, including torture, ransom and forced labour.

READ ALSO | Torture, murder, humiliation: Meet the militia carrying out pullbacks in Maltese SAR zone

The Malta Migration Archive reported a pullback just 32 nautical miles south of Malta last February.

“Forced pushbacks to Libya from so far within Malta’s search and rescue zone are unprecedented and an alarming escalation of Malta's unconscionable practices at sea,” it said.