At around 5.30pm on Wednesday evening, a group of 33 illegal immigrants landed in Qbajjar Bay, near Marsalforn, Gozo.

The immigrants, including one woman, arrived on a small boat and were held by the police.

This is the first group of illegal immigrants to make it to the Maltese Islands after Malta refused to take boatloads of immigrants found between Malta and Lampedusa in recent days. Eventually the Italian government decided to start taking these back to Libya from where they probably set off.

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