Sweden has ordered the return of some 550 immigrants to Malta in just over two years, statistics obtained by The Sunday Times show.
In 2008, Sweden decided to transfer 179 illegal immigrants, a figure that shot up to 315 the following year. In the first two months of this year, 49 people were told to leave the Scandinavian country.
However, to date only 179 immigrants have actually been transferred according to the Swedish migration office. It is not clear why some 370 immigrants who were ordered to leave have not yet reached Malta, though sources said the majority probably managed to evade the clutches of the immigration authorities.
In 2009 alone, it is estimated that 450 migrants were returned to Malta from EU member states. The majority are being sent back from Scandinavian countries, according to sources.
Sweden is facing harsh criticism from international organisations Save the Children and the Red Cross because child refugees are among those deported.
The organisations accused the Swedish migration board of sending back refugees to "dangerous and unhealthy" conditions in detention centres in Malta.
The head of the Jesuit Refugee Service, Fr Joseph Cassar, expressed "shock" at the Swedish government's actions.
Migrants in Malta who are granted refugee status or subsidiary protection are entitled to a travel document which allows them to apply for a visa and travel. Although they are supposed to return to Malta, the government does not to keep track of the number of people who fail to return.
Sources told The Sunday Times the actual number of illegal immigrants in Malta is likely to be much lower than official figures suggest, as hundreds leave and never return.
But if they are caught in another member state the migrants are returned to Malta under the Dublin Regulation, which allocates responsibility for examining an asylum application to the EU member state that the migrant first entered. Each EU country is obliged to take back its applicants who are irregularly in another member state.
Currently, those being transferred under the Dublin Regulation are not always able to access an asylum procedure. This puts people at risk of being returned to persecution.
But the strain on Malta was acknowledged by Bill Frelick, director of refugee policy at Human Rights Watch, who said Italy, Greece and Malta had an unfair burden for examining asylum claims for Europe under the Dublin Regulation.
"The solution lies in amending the rules so that EU states will share the burden equitably," Mr Frelick said.
According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and the UN Refugee Agency the system fails to provide fair, efficient and effective protection.
There are also a number of cases in which the European Court of Human Rights has, under its rule 39, instructed governments not to carry out Dublin transfers.
In one case, the court issued interim measures halting transfers from Finland to Italy and Malta (one each); both were women, the former a minor, and the latter with a five-month-old child.
The Dublin Regulation has come under criticism from the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament - last April it unanimously voted in favour of suspending the EU's Dublin Regulation in the case of countries which are facing disproportionate migratory pressure.
A comprehensive report, commissioned by the same committee and made public last January, confirmed that Malta had "the lowest capacity" to deal with the problem based on the size of its economy, its population size and density. The report also concluded that EU initiatives to alleviate the burden had little or no impact on the country.