At the time of writing yesterday afternoon, 20 people had been confirmed dead and a total of 130 were feared dead in the waters around Malta – sub-Saharan Africans, women and children included, who, in a bid to put the dangers of war-torn Libya behind them, met a tragic end nevertheless.

The current situation is without recent precedent in Malta’s stretch of the central Mediterranean.

Ramshackle migrant boats are nothing new to Malta, nor, unfortunately, is the loss of life we saw yesterday. Yes, asylum seekers had arrived in their thousands in the years before the Libyan regime ‘closed’ its coast through the controversial push-back agreement with Italy, and when they did make it to Malta in those days, they did so in a steady stream of small boats very seldom carrying more than 30 passengers.

Now we are seeing far larger boats with several dozen, if not hundreds, crammed aboard – and the stream threatens to become equally steady should violence in Libya escalate or should both factions enter into a long-drawn-out standoff between Benghazi and Tripoli.

During the week before last, three boats brought in over 800 sub-Saharan Africans fleeing Libya, before sea conditions south of Malta worsened and made the risky crossing even more perilous than usual.

This week, at least one boatload chose to brave the rough seas, with tragic consequences. But once sea conditions become more conducive to safe crossings, there is no telling the number of displaced people that will seek to flee Libyan shores for the safety of Europe – with Malta directly on the bee-line.

As the writing on the wall becomes clearer by the day to the effect that Malta is facing a very clear and present danger, the small country is seeking a proactive response from its partner EU countries, which, however, seem to prefer adopting a reactive approach to the threat. ‘Don’t come asking for help until it is well and truly needed… and we will consider your request then’ is the general message Malta is being given.

In the meantime, the situation is very simple for Malta: it will certainly not let people drown, nor will it allow itself to be drowned in the tidal wave of displaced persons on the horizon.

Short of voluntary solidarity, requests for which have landed on mostly deaf ears at EU level now as they have in the past, the Maltese government is seeking to invoke other established EU mechanisms that provide for mandatory burden sharing. And here Malta’s Home Affairs Minister will have his work cut out for him when he brings Malta’s case to the Council of Ministers level next week.

Malta, understandably, will argue that it simply does not have the means, or space, to deal with the potentially enormous influx of Africans and Libyans fleeing the embattled country. That much should be abundantly obvious.

But, despite this well-known fact and despite having been presented with rather alarming worst-case scenarios by both Frontex and Europol, Malta’s original request was met by brick walls, and the vast majority of member states that replied to the request had done so in the negative.

The request was threefold: establish a joint processing centre in a suitable member state, where all those entering the EU after fleeing Libya would be processed and accommodated proportionately across the bloc; a joint Frontex mission comprised of assets from a number of countries and not just those of Malta; and that the disputed new Frontex guidelines – which would effectively see all people rescued at sea being transferred to Malta instead of the nearest safe port – be ruled out of the operation.

The requests appear reasonable enough, but when Frontex asked other member states for their opinion, the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

Malta, as well as Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, will be bringing the arguments to the home affairs table next week. And others too, such as Malta’s proposal for the activation of a directive drawn up after the Balkan war to deal directly with a mass movement of displaced people, as well as the possibility of an EU military mission to Libya to help evacuees escape and be relocated across the EU.

And, while Malta’s fellow EU states had refused on the whole to share Malta’s burden in past years over political sensitivities at home, this latest refusal doesn’t add up, considering the amount of public attention and opinion the Libyan dilemma has had across Europe.

The sheer proportions of the phenomenon Malta is facing now are completely different from those of the past, and Malta has found itself to be a rock in a hard place, while the migrants themselves, in risking the dangerous crossing in spring, are finding themselves quite literally between a rock and a very hard place indeed.