Malta urged to give Eritreans political refugee status

A Capuchin monk from Eritrea, 52-year-old Abba Teweldeberhan Tzeggai, has made an impassioned appeal to the Maltese authorities to give political asylum to Eritrean illegal immigrants now in Malta.

Fr Tzeggai, who is vice-chaplain to the Eritrean and Ethiopian community in Milan and its province, made this appeal in a letter sent a few days ago to Fr Dionysius Mintoff, OFM, founder-director of the John XXIII Peace Lab at Hal Far, who has taken a special interest in the plight of illegal immigrants in Malta and has organised, through Peace Lab volunteers, various initiatives and forms of assistance for them.

Fr Tzeggai says that those who are fleeing Eritrea should be considered as political refugees, since they are running away from political persecution by a totalitarian regime. The country has some 20,000 political prisoners, he claims.

He has therefore requested Fr Mintoff to make the Maltese authorities realise that repatriating fleeing Eritreans would be a "very serious mistake" which could make them unwitting accomplices to their deaths, especially since most of these refugees, being former soldiers, would be considered "deserters" and thus liable to execution by firing squad.

Fr Tzeggai insists that the Eritreans seeking refuge in Malta are not economic refugees, in search of a higher standard of living, but "authentic political refugees" who have fled their beloved native land, their dear ones and all they hold dear in order to escape the cruelty of the regime.

Fr Tzeggai has published a book, In Defence of the Oppressed, written in Tigrinya, the Eritrean language, Italian and English, and published in Milan, in which he lists various episodes of torture, persecution and intolerance by the Eritrean regime, which he witnessed himself.

He said that the Eritrean regime has been denounced by the European Parliament, Amnesty International and even the United States government for its use of torture, forced labour, the constant violation of human rights, especially the right to freedom of expression.

He therefore saw no reason why those fleeing Eritrea should be denied the status of political refugees.

Fr Tzeggai ended his letter to Fr Mintoff by expressing the hope that the problem of Eritreans in Malta would be resolved in the best possible way, namely in full respect of human dignity and to the satisfaction of all concerned, not least for the good name of Malta itself.