A fourth of migrants who applied for protection in Malta last year were Syrian, while only 15 people out of 2,626 applicants were granted refugee status, according to a database managed by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles.
Another 10% of applicants (93) were Eritrean and nine per cent (92) were Ukrainian.
This means that at least 44 per cent of all applicants are fleeing armed conflict or undemocratic regimes.
Still, none of those granted refugee status was Syrian, Eritrean or Ukrainian: six were Libyan, two were Palestinian and two from Cameroon, and one each from Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Iran, Libya, Russia and Sudan.
In all, throughout 2022 Malta took a decision on whether to grant protection to 2,626 people. A third of requests were rejected.
The previous year Malta rejected 76 per cent of vetted asylum applications.
It is not unusual for rejection rates to vary significantly from one year to the next.
The data has been published in a report compiled by ECRE’s Asylum Information Database, which contains detailed information about asylum procedures, reception conditions and detention in 23 European countries. The report was written by the aditus foundation and edited by ECRE.
The authors lamented in a statement that for the first time in years, none of the entities within the Home Affairs Ministry provided any statistical procedural information.
“We were only able to secure asylum statistics through a Freedom of Information request. We hope this approach will not extend into next year’s research process, in a spirit of openness and transparency,” aditus’ director Neil Falzon said.
Aditus' struggle to obtain data from authorities mirrors a similar struggle faced by the media when reporting on migration-related issues.
Just last week, Times of Malta reported that authorities have spent more than one year refusing to say how many people were rescued in Maltese search-and-rescue waters and how many were brought ashore, taken to Libya or Italy, citing national security reasons while dismissing the request as “curiosity”.
Times of Malta is requesting the data in light of claims, over the past years that Malta was failing to assist migrants at risk and of breaking international laws.
Sudanese applicants rejected en masse
Apart from the 15 people who were granted refugee status, 172 applicants were given subsidiary protection.
Those eligible for subsidiary protection do not qualify as a refugee but are deemed to be at risk of serious harm if returned to their country of origin.
Most of those granted subsidiary protection were Syrian (89), followed by Eritreans (76).
In comparison, in 2022, the International Protection Agency rejected Sudanese applicants en masse.
Sudan has since been ravaged by civil conflict.
According to the UNHCR, the IPA issued 602 decisions last year: 342 were ‘otherwise closed’, 258 were rejected, and two were granted refugee status for a recognition rate of 0.3%, while the European average is 40%.
Staffing struggles
According to the report, the IPA “is still far from being able to carry its mission autonomously” and “heavily relies” on the European Union Agency for Asylum.
At the end of 2022, the IPA had a total staff of 21 people: two conducting first instance interviews and four taking decisions or making final recommendations.
The year before, the IPA had five caseworkers in charge of conducting interviews and three officials drafting decisions out of the 23 staff total staff employed.
In comparison, in 2020 the IPA employed 28 staff, 19 of whom were caseworkers. Out of these, five were in charge of drafting decisions on asylum applications.
The AIDA report notes that in 2022, the IPA “continued to massively discontinue applications as implicitly withdrawn, significantly reducing its backlog in the process”.
“Asylum seekers who miss a call for an interview or fail to renew a document on time see their application systematically discontinued by the agency,” the report explains.
“While it is true that many applicants absconded from Malta or abandoned their applications, mostly due to the length of the asylum procedure and the lack of any prospect in the country, the asylum seekers who remained in Malta are also impacted by this policy.
“NGOs noted that this policy disproportionately affects asylum seekers who are employed and work long hours and those who are doing jail time as the IPA tends to notify people by phone call during working hours… Asylum seekers in detention were reportedly also impacted by this policy and many of them saw their application discontinued due to various miscommunication issues and their misunderstanding of the procedure or their refusal to carry the interview due to their health condition or simply due to the frustration and anger for being detained without any information or access to a lawyer.”
444 sea arrivals to Malta in 2022
Between January and December 2022, the UNHCR recorded 444 sea arrivals to Malta.
Twelve people were airlifted by the Armed Forces of Malta, at least 23 arrived spontaneously, while 409 were rescued by the AFM at sea.
This is a 48% decrease in arrivals compared to the same period of 2021.
“In a new trend during 2022, two boats that departed from Lebanon were rescued by the AFM in the Maltese SAR zone and disembarked in Malta.
People from Bangladesh (53%), Syria (26%), Egypt (8%), and Lebanon (7%) were the most common arrivals to Malta by sea.
Although there is no clear policy regarding returnees, the report observes that people from Bangladesh, Egypt and Lebanon among others are at risk of being detained and returned.
It is estimated that Malta ignored calls of distress and failed to rescue around 7,459 people in distress at sea in its search-and-rescue zone. Malta was also accused of being involved in 14 pushbacks of a total of 789 people.
These numbers are an estimation based on incidents reported by rescue NGOs and news agencies.
No access to family, friends
The reception regulations provide for the possibility for detainees to receive visits from family members and friends up to once per week.
However, in practice, no formal procedures exist for such visits and the practice is erratic and largely discretionary, according to the report.
In 2020, such visits were not allowed. No information was provided on the matter for 2021 or 2022.
Throughout 2022, only people providing legal services were granted access to applicants, and with several practical obstacles, it adds. Even psychologists and social workers were denied access to detainees.
While lawyers were given access to individual, named clients, they were not allowed to visit newly-arrived groups or lists of detainees.
This means that, in practice, for applicants to have access to legal information and services, NGOs must regularly call each block of the detention centres and request personal information of groups of people over the phone.
Police numbers, exact names, detention grounds, and countries of origin have to be continuously registered and updated in order for the lawyers to specify which individual applicants they would like to visit as clients.
With this information, generally quite randomised and superficial, NGO lawyers are required to submit a visit request to the detention services in order to reserve a slot in the centre board room.
NGOs are usually allocated up to four hours, during which the lawyers (accompanied by an interpreter, as needed) are able to talk to between six to eight people.
There are weeks when NGOs visit a detention centre twice, whilst there are times when weeks pass without any slot being allocated.