These people clung to this net for 3 days

The governments of Mediterranean countries are turning the sea between them into a “wild west in which human life has lost its value and people in danger are left to fend for themselves”, a UN official said yesterday.

Laura Boldrini, a Rome-based spokeswoman for the UN’s high commissioner for refugees, was speaking as Libya, Malta and Spain continued to wrangle over the fate of 26 migrants from Africa, more than two days after they were plucked from the Mediterranean. The three governments were refusing to take in the migrants, who were stranded on a Spanish vessel last reported 80 miles south of Malta, about halfway between the island and the Libyan coast.

Ms Boldrini said she understood that, like 27 migrants saved by Italian rescuers at the weekend, the members of the latest group were found clinging to tuna nets on the high seas.

“That appears to be the case,” said Ms Boldrini, who noted that a further 57 migrants photographed by Maltese rescuers last week had since disappeared without trace and were thought to have drowned.

As Tana de Zulueta, a Green party MP in Italy, said: “The oldest of all humanitarian laws, that of rescue at sea, is being ignored.”