AN EAST Lancashire family on a sailing holiday rescued a group of refugees who were fleeing Libya.

Nicolette Chambers, 51, from Haslingden, and her husband Stuart were sailing between Greece and Italy when they spotted the sinking vessel.

They headed towards the boat which was packed with Pakistani refugees who were screaming for help.

The couple, along with their son Oliver, 18, and two family friends, managed to pull 11 people on board their luxury yacht, the Jasmina, before alerting Greek coastguards.

They had set off from the Greek island Zante and were sailing to Kefalonia.

Yesterday the Foreign Office confirmed that 11 people had been rescued and 19 drowned in the incident at around 3am on Saturday.

The group of 30 refugees would have travelled around 300 miles on the small boat and would have been at sea for several days, officials said.

Nicolette told the dramatic story to her parents May and Frank Horrocks, who live in Helmshore, after they transferred the refugees to a bigger rescue ship which took them on to to Kefalonia.

May, 82, said: “We are very, very proud.

"It is incredible to think they have saved so many lives, they are heroes.

“They have done a fantastic job. It sounds very dramatic and not what you expect from a holiday.”

There were around 18,000 Pakistani’s living and working in Libya at the start of the year, although some returned to their home land when trouble broke out earlier this year.

The Pakistani Government is yet to officially recognise the new Libyan regime, which could have increased tensions in the country.

There have been several incidents in recent months of rescue missions from Italian cost guards for small fishing boats that have got in trouble as they attempt to flee Libya.

In total, more than 400,000 refugees have fled Libya since the conflict began in February.

The couple, who now live in Chelford, near Alderley Edge, Cheshire, have owned the yacht for around two years and last Wednesday they set off on a sailing holiday from Sicily and are on their way to Turkey, before flying back to the UK at the end of September.

Stuart is a non-executive director at the UK’s biggest supermarket chain Tesco and is a former chief executive of Pilkington Glass.

The luxurious yacht, a Beneteau 57, is one of the most popular sailing yachts around and is approximately 20m long with a number of berths and cabins.

Nicolette was born in Haslingden and went to Haslingden County Primary School and Haslingden High School before heading to university in Nottingham where she met Stuart.

The couple have lived in several locations in the UK and in Germany, before settling down in Cheshire with their three children.

Their daughters Claire, 24, and Sophie, 22, were at home at the time.

May said: “We got a text from Nicolette on Saturday morning telling us about what had happened, we couldn’t believe it at first.

“They said they had come across the boat as it was sinking and said the people on board were screaming for help and very frightened.

"I think they were the first people on the scene.”

Since June the yacht has been moored at Abersoch in North Wales.

In August Stuart and Oliver sailed to down to Gibraltar and on to Sicily, where they set off on their journey from last week.