Gerald Fenech
New amendments in international safety conventions that should come into effect in June 2006, and which are being strongly opposed by Malta, will create a situation where floods of asylum seekers picked up in our vast territorial waters, would end up on our island.
This was revealed by Brigadier Carmel Vassallo, Commander of the Armed Forces during a public discussion on the immigration issue on Smash Television earlier this week. The programme was presented by Brian Hansford.
Brigadier Vassallo said that although we are a small nation, our territorial responsibilities would cover over 260,000 square kilometres, from the tip of Tunisia to the island of Crete. According to international obligations, we would be required to patrol and provide surveillance of this area and this would put a severe strain on the army’s resources, the Brigadier said.
Further to that, amendments to the Search and Rescue Convention (Hamburg) and to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention will make the picture much more complex.
Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, Brigadier Vassallo explained that these amendments would make a country responsible for the co-ordination of rescue operations in its area of responsibility. At the moment, boatloads of immigrants are taken to the nearest country when they are rescued but this may all change after June 2006.
This paper can confirm that the total spend on illegal immigrants for the AFM amounted to Lm1.014 million. Lm674,000 went on wages and salaries, which would have been issued anyway, to personnel fully employed to look after the immigrants. Lm42,000 was spent on maintenance work to the centres.
Brigadier Vassallo said the army is currently holding around 540 immigrants in its open and closed centres in Hal Far, Lyster Barracks in Safi and the new centre in Marsa. The exact total for those at closed centres is 290 while 250 are being held in open centres.
He also confirmed that up to 22 June, the number of immigrants who arrived was almost double that of last year. The figures are 239 for this year and 133 for 2004 with many more expected soon as the weather has taken a turn for the better.
A further 27 were brought to Malta yesterday. Their wooden boat was spotted on 24 June by the Italian navy drifting at position 60 NM South of Malta.
An AFM Patrol Craft P51 was sent to the area and after a short search, P51 spotted the migrants’ boat at around 1.35am yesterday with 27 people (including one woman) who requested assistance and were taken on board. The migrants later disembarked at the AFM Maritime Squadron base at Haywharf and were handed over to the police for further investigations. They come from Eritrea, Sudan and Chad.
Later yesterday a second boat was found adrift some 55 nautical miles south of Malta, containing 26 male asylum seekers.
Malta was to sign a repatriation agreement with Libya, but up to now nothing has been heard of this important arrangement, or if an agreement has been reached.
There has also been slow progress in the inquiry about the incidents at Safi that occurred last January and there has not been much feedback on the National Conference on Irregular Immigration, which took place last February.
Commenting on the Safi incidents issue, Brigadier Vassallo insisted that at that time there were over 500 immigrants at the barracks with the AFM 1st Regiment consisting of around 500 personnel. He said that in addition to their duties of taking care of the immigrants, these soldiers also have to do vehicle maintenance, bomb storage and a myriad of other tasks so it is very clear that the army’s human resources are hard pressed enough as it is and the public must be aware of this.
Also present on the programme was Dr Harry Vassallo, Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika who traded barbs with Parliamentary Secretary, Tony Abela on the issue of journalist access to immigrant centres. Dr Vassallo said all journalists should be allowed access and it would be dangerous if the government were to cherry pick journalists on the basis of their beliefs if access to such centres was to be allowed, eventually.
Dr Abela said there was consensus that the immigrants’ situation was not a political issue and we, as a nation, have to do our utmost to assist those unfortunates who find themselves in such situations.
Asked about the possibility that an Italian spotter plane normally used for fishing purposes was actually radioing our Italian counterparts when immigrants were sighted, Brigadier Vassallo conceded that there had been incidents where immigrant locations had been revealed by such planes. Dr Abela said that although such incidents had indeed happened, it was not feasible to stop the spotter plane from operating as Maltese fishermen also benefited from this service.
Reacting to an article written by Fr Paul Pace from the Jesuit Refugee Service, Fr Alfred Vella from the Church’s Immigrants Commission said there are currently around 400 refugees who are living in open centres run by the Church. He invited Dr Vassallo to tour these centres so he could see for himself the conditions in which these immigrants are kept, which are of a decent standard.