Serbians living in Malta have expressed deep shock at the treatment of non-EU children, who were sent letters on Tuesday by Identity Malta telling them to 'go home'.
In a move, the authorities later conceded was a mistake, the government entity instructed Serbian and Macedonian nationals fighting to keep their children in the country, to send them home “as soon as possible”.
“Identity Malta has yet again breached international, EU and Maltese law in respect of human rights before backtracking on its rushed course of action,” the leader of the Malta Serbian Community (MSC) said in a statement on Thursday.
In demanding that the families depart from Malta as soon as possible, even though they were currently appealing the entity’s unlawful decision to evict their children, Identity Malta had also breached Malta’s Immigration Act, Predrag Andrejevic added.
Requesting they leave preferably with the assistance of foreign authorities, despite the lockdown and cessation of all commercial flights, added insult to injury, he said.
Andrejevic urged Identity Malta to take extra precautionary measures during these difficult times.
It needed to ensure that its actions are legal and did not adversely impact those parts of Maltese society that are the hardest hit by the crisis, among which were non-EU citizens, taxpayers and contributors to the economy, who had been residing here for years.
“In these trying times, rather than focus on common goals and assist the most vulnerable and needy, it has sadly become a habit of some institutions and authorities to use incendiary rhetoric and issue rushed measures that do not take into consideration the precarious situation of certain minorities,” he said.
“The authorities must unite the country and achieve a common goal, that is, to emerge from this crisis as a stronger and better society by utilising all its human capital and resources,” he added.
As always, he pointed out, the MSC stood ready to support Identity Malta, along with other TCN stakeholders in order to address the issues they are facing, and propose different scenarios to avoid potentially damaging decisions, both for the people in question and the authority’s reputation.