A Maltese special operations team boarded a tanker and took back control of it Thursday after the ship was hijacked by migrants it had rescued at sea. Several police vans were lined up on shore to take custody of the migrants for investigation, and five migrants were led off the ship in handcuffs. In all, the tanker had rescued 100 people — 38 men, 15 women and 47 claiming to be minors, Malta officials said. (Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)The ship had been heading toward Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa and the island nation of Malta when Maltese forces intercepted it. Next steps for migrants unclearHumanitarian organizations strongly object to that characterization and say migrants are mistreated and even tortured in Libya, and have protested protocols to return migrants rescued offshore to the lawless northern African nation.

Source: CBC News March 28, 2019 11:48 UTC