Message in a tent

A telling remark by the Home Affairs Minister during a television debate on Monday let the cat out of the bag as to the unofficial reason why two tent cities were set up to house illegal immigrants.

On Monday's Bondiplus, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici at one point said: "With the tents we also sent messages".

He did not go into detail as to what he meant by "messages" or to who these were directed.

Government sources confirmed the tent cities were not just set up because of lack of resources but were also intended as a "message" to Brussels in the hope that the pitiful state the immigrants were housed in would nudge the European Union into helping Malta deal with the problem.

Asked what the minister meant by the remark, a spokesman for Dr Mifsud Bonnici insisted the comment reflected the fact that Malta had done "its best to provide decent conditions for these persons as it has always striven to offer reasonable accommodation despite its limited resources".

The minister's reply cited "lack of resources" as the official explanation for housing immigrants in tents but failed to elaborate what the "message" was. The spokes-man would not elaborate when asked to do so.

The tent cities in Ħal Far, one an open centre and the other a detention facility, have been slammed by international humanitarian organisations and European human rights institutions.

Whether housing illegal immigrants in tents has had any impact on the EU's collective conscience enough to come to Malta's assistance was doubtful but the ministry was now in the process of replacing the tents with pre-fabricated structures.

"Now we are substituting the tents with a number of pre-fabricated structures," the ministry spokesman said.