Malta’s detention centres currently host 1,978 migrants of whom 23 are in the process of being deported, the Home Affairs Minister said in parliament on Tuesday.
Byron Camilleri gave this information in reply to a parliamentary question filed by Opposition MP Carm Mifsud Bonnici.
Camilleri noted that all of those being detained in these facilities were irregular migrants who had reached Malta by sea.
Migration has resurfaced on the country’s agenda following the COVID-19 outbreak. On April 9, the government announced it would no longer accept any migrants in view of the pandemic. On that day, Malta accepted a group of 60 asylum seekers who had been rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta.
Subsequently, NGO Repubblika took the matter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in a bid to force both the Maltese government and Italian authorities to rescue migrants in distress. Repubblika had filed the request with the ECHR for an interim measure as a boat carrying more than 50 people drifted in Maltese waters. However, this request was turned down.
Meanwhile, hours after Repubblika had filed its request at the Strasbourg-based court, tragedy unfolded at sea.
The International Organisation for Migration said that five people aboard the boat were found dead and another seven were missing. Some 47 survivors aboard that vessel were picked up by a commercial vessel and returned to Libya, where they were locked up in detention cells in Tripoli.
Things came to a head on April 17, when the NGO filed two police reports, asking for an investigation to establish if the army and prime minister had caused the death of migrants at sea by failing to rescue them. The second complaint concerned the alleged intentional sabotage of a rubber boat carrying asylum seekers.
The move triggered a fierce reaction from Prime Minister Robert Abela, who, in a televised address on the State broadcaster, vehemently refuted such claims.
Abela also took issue with the fact that one of the lawyers who had signed Repubblika’s criminal complaint was Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi, albeit in his professional capacity. Nonetheless, Azzopardi subsequently announced he was renouncing to the case in the wake of pressure which his party was facing on the matter.