A Maltese request for assistance for the relocation of rescued migrants has not drawn a single offer of help, Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said on Sunday.

The minister was replying in a tweet to a story carried on Times of Malta on Saturday where the outgoing Malta representative of the UNHCR said 1,400 asylum seekers are being held illegally at the Marsa and Safi centres, some of them detained for five months.

Kahin Ismail, representing the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) said that the conditions in Malta's detention centres, especially at Safi, are very poor and unaccompanied minors were being unlawfully detained along with adults.

Mr Ismail acknowledged that the unprecedented number of boat arrivals in 2019, roughly 3,400, put a strain on the system, and that asylum seekers were being detained at Safi and Marsa centres because there was no space in the open centres.

Dr Farrugia also referred to the spike of arrivals in his tweet

"There was a request to assist Malta in relocation of migrants found in the Initial Reception Centre after a record year of rescues carried out on the high sea under our responsibility. So far not even one arrangement for relocation has been offered. So easy to criticize," Dr Farrugia said.

He did not specify who the request was made to.

Several groups of migrants were relocated from Malta over the past months, but those migrants were previously rescued by NGO rescue vessels and broought to Malta after arrangements were made for their distribution within the European Union.

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